Google again

I also discovered, through Ben Toth's Libraries in the NHS, an article by Jason Epstein on Google in the New York Review of Books. Epstein discusses the following:

Jeanneney , Jean-Noël
Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge: A View from Europe
University of Chicago Press, December 2006, 0226395774

Battelle, John
The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
Nicholas Brealey, 2006 1857883624

Anderson, Chris
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More
Random House, 2006 184413850X

Millerand. William and Pellen, Rita M
Libraries and Google
Haworth, 2006 0789031256

Vise, David A and Malseed, Mark
The Google Story: Inside the Hottest Business, Media, and Technology Success of Our Time
Macmillan, 2005 1405053712

I shall certainly read Jeanneney, director of the Bibliothèque nationale  and the Miller and Pellen book. Of the others, Battelle and Anderson are both well known, and the title of Vise and Malseed suggests the book lacks a certain high seriousness.

From Epstein's review:

"The invention during World War II of electronic memory and of the World Wide Web a mere seventeen years ago originally as a way for scientists to communicate with distant colleagues is a further—perhaps the ultimate— evolution of the momentous transition from collective memory dependent largely on mnemonic verse to prosaic inscription on clay, stone, and paper. With these primitive tools human beings were at last able to record, in language of great beauty and profound understanding, the lore and wisdom accumulated during our long prehistory. What further triumphs of the human spirit may be shaped from the World Wide Web, should our species survive its current folly, are beyond imagining."

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