HOUSTON —     A pending Google lawsuit settlement could well affect learning and teaching worldwide.  As I crossed onto the campus of the University of Houston to visit my friend, professor Nicolás Kanellos, I had to wonder how it might affect his life’s mission. Kanellos has spent his adult years building Arte Público Press, the largest U.S. publisher of contemporary and recovered Hispanic literature.

   Google and its partners must submit by Nov. 9 a revised settlement for federal district court Judge Denny Chin’s preliminary approval. Google and representatives of the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers had previously struck a deal concerning the books the search engine company had scanned from university libraries. Then they were sued for copyright infringement. Hundreds of authors, academics, librarians, public interest groups and would-be rivals objected. In September, a settlement was reached, but the Justice Department stepped in and recommended that the court reject it as it stood.

   In a 32-page filing, Justice told the court it was concerned that the agreement violated antitrust law if Google were given exclusive rights over digital versions of “orphan works.” These are the ones whose authors are unknown or cannot be found.

   Even though it was objecting, Justice said it wanted an agreement in the end because many readers and scholars would benefit from getting their hands on hard-to-find source material.

   Imagine what this settlement means to consumers when the collections in every major public library in the country, even the world, are accessible on a home computer. The very idea got me thinking about a new generation of public intellectuals, the ones Infoplease.com says show “distinction in their own field along with the ability to communicate ideas and influence debate.”

   Kanellos’ group is involved in the vast recovery of a Hispanic literary heritage that bluster had sidelined until now. His materials are turning out to be crucial to understanding our national culture. His project has already recovered about 2 million newspaper items in the public domain. They are available online to researchers and the public interest.

   “I don’t see much problem with that,” Kanellos told me about the prospect of Google becoming a competitor. You see, the publications and materials he finds are often in such limited numbers and in out-of-the-way places — in attics, private libraries and collections that Google scanners won’t find them. The truly hard work is not the digitizing but the search and retrieval and data-mining that Kanellos and his group do before there’s something for the Google people and the others to fight over.

   Arte Público’s work is so vast, it is fast outgrowing its current university offices, now occupying two floors of a building, Later next year it is slated to headquarter in its own building. Yet, Kanellos agrees that where and how we obtain information is changing the educational landscape and that of the learners’ minds.

   He sees the role of professors transforming into one of coaches who guide students to evaluate the kind and quality of their information sources. He regrets the sensate experience of holding a book instead of a digital reader. 

   In fact, the university library experience — you remember falling asleep late at night at a desk by the book stacks — is virtually gone. Students now fall asleep at their own desks at home, logged onto the library where they retrieve reference works. They take online courses. Some never see a professor live. Webcasts are the training experiences the next generation is already getting.

   Perhaps the challenge may differ from the one I had thought about. With no physical contact and statistical interviews becoming scenarios, the challenge is about how reality is morphing. Research intellectuals can give a new look and sound to everyday life, much like an action computer game.

   The humanities become virtual history and literature. Life’s existential moments become a door holding back the unknown. Umph. Whack. Take this. Research that.

   [José de la Isla’s latest digital book, sponsored by The Ford Foundation, is available free at www.DayNightLifeDeathHope.com. He writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service and is author of The Rise of Hispanic Political Power (2003). E-mail him at [email protected].]

   © 2009