Creating New Information and Communication Models in Working with Users within the Google Library Project

Abstract

The article analyzes characteristic features and development logic of the library project by Google, which started from the famous Google Book Search project (also known as Google Books and Google Print), and later as Google Play Books within the multi-platform multimedia service Google Play. For decades, a constant trend of the corporation’s activity has been the development and testing of new social and communication models in working with users, combining the complexity and global reach of the audience with the use of its interactive potential. In the early 2000s, the company initiated mass scanning of library collections, thus starting the development of a new institutional paradigm for electronic libraries. Later, having developed new business models for the distribution of electronic copies of printed products in the course of numerous legal proceedings on charges of copyright infringement, it also pioneered the new information market development.From the very beginning, Google Book Search was aimed at the mass user, which was facilitated by its constantly expanding set of options and increasing level of comfort of access to the resource. In 2006—2010, the service presented an opportunity for users to download, in pdf format, books free of copyright law; a new viewing interface “About this book” was added; an opportunity to operate texts using “My library” option was provided; a mobile version of the service was launched; access to statistical information on diachronic frequency dynamics of word usage based on the collected database was provided.The article analyzes the further development of the library project within the Google Play Books service, which allows users to read, buy and sell e-books, use bookmarks, download their own books in pdf and EPUB formats, and synchronize data on all user’s devices. There is assessed the social significance of the project in the context of the global electronic civilization development.