Bonus Material: How the Spanish View the Google Book Settlement

By Emily Williams

A recent article in El Pais outlines the Spanish position on the Google Book Settlement, and offers an unusually balanced look at the progress represented by Google Book Settlement vs. the objections of Europeans caught up in a US legal fight.

Two particularly good quotes:

1. “The settlement has raised blisters in Europe, with accusations bordering on intellectual piracy against Google, but it’s also shown once again the agility of the American system compared to the delays, parsimoniousness, and fragmentation of Europe’s way of doing things.”

2. “Milagros del Corral, who participated in the session on behalf of the European national libraries, described how there were philosophical, economic, and cultural questions in play.  ’Google’s idea is an eternally human one, that of putting everything in the same place.’ The Library of Alexandria tried it and the librarian Jorge Luis Borges dreamed it. ‘Now with new technology this possibility exists, but the human condition is opposed to homogenization.’”