if:Book – Google and the myth of universal knowledge: a view from Europe

Interesting post in if:Book, about the new book coming out in France, Quand Google d?ɬ©fie l’Europe : plaidoyer pour un sursaut, by Jean-No?ɬ´l Jeanneney. Jeanneny, who is the director of the French National Library, is one of the most prominent critics of the Google Book project, and is worried about the project leading to an English-language bias in the cultural record, as well being worried about consumerist information models taking hold. Jeanneny’s criticisms spurred President Jacques Chirac to initiate a separate European book scanning project. The blog post referred to here claims that the concerns over an English-language bias in Google Book are mostly off-base.