Showing posts with label books as great equalizer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books as great equalizer. Show all posts

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Civil Rights Activists Champion Google Book Deal; PC World, 7/29/09

Grant Gross via PC World; Civil Rights Activists Champion Google Book Deal:

"A proposed settlement allowing Google to digitize millions of books will have huge benefits for minority populations and their access to valuable information, a group of civil rights leaders and educators said Wednesday.

The Google book settlement, scheduled to be reviewed in an Oct. 7 court hearing, would allow Google to scan and make available scores of books, including millions of out-of-print titles. The digitized books will give minorities and poor people new access to titles that were formerly only available at large university libraries, supporters of the deal said during a forum at the Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C.

"The idea that a student in Boston at a very exclusive private school can read the same books that a student somewhere in an underfunded, urban public school, that they can have the same access to the same materials is actually just amazing," said Professor Rhea Ballard-Thrower, law librarian at the Howard law school. "Books are the great equalizer.""

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/169275/civil_rights_activists_champion_google_book_deal.html