Hmmm, I’m not sure how I feel about this. Doing a search to see how I am presented to the world through Google (and finding that Facebook is my first hit–after all my hard work on this blog, the social networking giant eats p my standings in a single gulp) I found that my essay for She’s Such a Geek is available for free though Google Books. Now, I have already fallen guiltily in love with Google Books. It was because of them I could cite the diary of a 12 year old during the civil war. But it makes me feel a little odd to see someone I worked so hard on, a project I think deserves to make money put up for free with no one asking me for permission. It’s where ego/financial self-preservation and my love to free information come into conflict. Not speaking on the legal matters associated with Google Books, what are the moral ones? It feels like something for nothing, though I’m sure there’s an undergrad with ink-stained hands who would disagree that scanning is “nothing”. But nothing for me. It feels a little odd.
By the way, since I haven’t decided whether I support this or not, I’ll leave you to find the book on your own. I know for sure I am much more supportive of people buying the book than borrowing it from the Google scanned library.
Inspirational Quote:
It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information. – Oscar Wilde
