Google: Over 380 Million Served
BY Terence Dick
In 1938, nine-year-old Milton Sirotta coined the term googol. How do we know this? Because in 1998, Google was born and changed forever the way we think we know things. Some of us might remember a time when it was a challenge to figure out the guitar solo on “Welcome to the Jungle” or find the best comic book stores in Bolivia, but now, thanks to Google, any question you might have, no matter how obscure, is answered in a fraction of a second. It might take hours to wade through the results and there’s always the possibility you won’t get the answers you’re looking for (which doesn’t mean there is no answer, just that no one’s posted it on the net yet), but according to 380 million users per month, Google is our very own Library of Alexandria.
With its trademarked PageRank and Hypertext-Matching Analysis technology, Google searches through the entirety of the internet to identify pages that include the keywords in your search. Using what Google the Company refers to as the “collective intelligence” of the web, Google the Website conducts an instantaneous survey to rank those with the most links (though not all links are created equal and some are valued more highly than others). This, according to Google the Promotional Material, means their service is a source of objective information, untainted by human judgements. However, this “intelligence” is based on popularity, not scholarship. Truth be told, the internet isn’t a library and shouldn’t be imagined as one. It is an infinite marketplace in the global town square, populated by every manner of barkers, sales folk, barterers, soapbox prophets, personal shrines and troubadours. In spite of this, Google continues on their self-professed (and highly profitable) mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
The recent Google Books Library Project is but the most recent salvo in the war of accessibility. The plan, to make available as many books as humanly (and digitally) possible by scanning entire library collections and making them searchable online, raised some questions about consent when, after complaints by both the Authors Guild in New York and the Association of American Publishers, Google decided that copyright holders (authors, publishers and estates) would have to voluntarily opt-out to avoid participating in the project. Otherwise, everything and anything would be scanned. Google promised to respect the rights of living authors, posting only excerpts on their database and directing the curious to book sale sites, but insisted a full text scan was required of every book. In a retort that must have had musicians and music industry professionals rolling their eyes, the literary folk claimed that an electronic copy of their work would leave open the possibility of book piracy.
However this minor controversy is resolved in the courts (according to an editorial in the January 15th LA Times, we’re still waiting), the inevitable outcome will be increased access to entire books over the internet, most likely through a powerhouse like Google and not from a similar, older initiative like Project Gutenberg. Despite my skepticism that anyone will ever download Finnegans Wake and print it out, let alone read it online, part of me admires the intent of the Library Project. Writing is in danger of being forgotten in our post-electronic age and making it readily available is a step in the right direction. I’m more than willing to sacrifice the fetish value of yellow pages and disintegrating bindings in order to have a chance to read obscure scientific texts from the 1800s…. At the same time, the curmudgeon in me insists that the value of knowledge changes depending on how much effort it takes to acquire it. Here is where the Holy Grail of accessibility becomes sullied by the taint of mass consumerism.
The exact type of information that is best served by search engines like Google—trivia, indiscriminate data, archival nonsense—is that which used to be the hardest to find. Want to find out the discography of Terminal Cheesecake? Want to see experimental films from the ’60s? Want to know who else gets sexually aroused by having a girl stand on his face? This used to take a lifetime of work and those that made the effort formed a community. They shared an understanding. Now any pimply teenager can plumb the underground with a couple keystrokes. How will that ease translate to the great works of literature? A dedication to learning (or even reading) will no longer be required. Sure, it takes some doing to navigate the internet, but Google is an overachieving Virgil to the surfer’s Dante and the information comes as quickly as a hamburger at McDonald’s. We are entering a new age of access but speed is not the path to wisdom. Fast knowledge, like fast food, will make you fat, lazy and undernourished. By making the wisdom of the ages infinitely and instantly searchable, Google threatens to reduce the collected works of Shakespeare to the level of the IMDb. That’s why writers should be upset.
