That’s the question on the mind of Robert Darnton, who runs Harvard University’s library system. For years, the Google Book Search project has digitized millions of books from libraries around the world, running into copyright law and a class action lawsuit from the Association of American Publishers in the process. When Google reached a tentative settlement of the suit in October, Darnton got nervous and refused to abide by the settlement; at least, not until he studied it a little more. Now, after poring through all 134 pages and 15 appendices, he’s feeling even queasier and has written a lengthy explication of his fears (what he calls a tension between “jeremiad” and “utopian enthusiasm”) in the New York Review of Books. Google, Darnton ultimately worries, cannot be trusted. Because the history of literature and publishing since the Enlightenment shows that no one, however noble, can be trusted with control of the entire corpus of human thought.
