Libraries, Books, and Google

This is an interesting dilemma. I'm all for digitizing books (for digitizing everything, really), and I learned a lot about Google's project while I was researching Google this last year. However, I have to wonder if the libraries that are resisting having their books digitized are really doing it because they don't want the availability of information to be business-related. It seems to me that although librarians are huge fans of freedom of speech, when it really comes down to it, if all books are digitized, there is no need for libraries and thus no need for librarians.

Maybe while libraries try to make up their minds, Google should turn to what I've been waiting for: if anyone has the computing power to link the world's genealogy, it's Google. They could call it Googlealogy or something cutesy like that.

People like my friend Sister Seipert write hundreds of letters searching for names and dates of another generation of ancestors. Luckily, she got an answer this week and learned of a new couple in her family tree. Congrats!