German publishers' Google challenge

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/05/business/google06.php
German publishers' Google challenge  
By Doreen Carvajal International Herald Tribune
MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2005

Ulmer and a five-member task force of the German book trade association
B�rsenverein are organizing their own digital indexing project,
Volltextsuche Online. The effort of the 6,000-member association of
booksellers and publishers comes in reaction to Google's plans, unveiled
in December, to start digitizing books in the world, with the first step
being major university library collections in the United States.

"We have to decide whether distribution is in the hands of a few global
distributors and global publishing houses," said Ulmer, who heads Eugen
Ulmer Verlag, a medium-size publishing house in Stuttgart. Publishers and
booksellers that are involved, he said, "feel that if they don't do this
today, they may no longer exist in some years."
 
The German project includes some publishing industry heavyweights like
Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, a Stuttgart-based media group. But it
still faces a test of membership reaction at a general assembly of the
association on June 17 in Berlin. The trade association is not putting the
idea to a vote but will essentially gather feedback.
 
Publishers are well aware of the resources of their rival, Google Print,
which plans to offer free, searchable online copies of out-of-copyright
books. But they are most concerned about its plans to also offer limited
portions of newer books like the table of contents and excerpts. Amazon
has already expanded its basic keyword searching techniques so that
results display information from inside books

Ulmer said it was possible to offer the beginnings of a searchable
database as early as this autumn by using existing decentralized servers
of publishers and converting digital material to lower resolution files.
 
B�rsenverein's project would begin with newer, front-list titles dating
back about five years, according to Ulmer. He also said he envisioned the
new system offering new ways of buying books in various forms.
 
For example, readers could buy a single chapter of a book, download a
title for a short period or buy a mixture of chapters from different
biographies of the same person.
 
"Of course, it's in the interest of Google and Amazon and the big
publishers that this platform doesn't exist," Ulmer said. "But we have the
power to make it happen." ...

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