Book Reviews 851

Overall, this book is well organized and well written with clarity of thought that is 
refreshing. The authors’ extensive professional experiences are clearly at play in the 
way they can easily and succinctly illustrate a point to the reader. Consortia are a vital 
part of any library relationship, and this book can serve to help the unfamiliar gain 
a good foundation for the role consortia play in libraries today and possibly in the 
future.—Ryan Litsey, Texas Tech University

Andrew Weiss. Using Massive Digital Libraries: A LITA Guide. Chicago: American Library 
Association, 2014. 192 p. Paper, $60.00 (ISBN: 978-0-8389-1235-5).

In his book, Andrew Weiss takes what could be written in volumes and condenses 
the information into one accessible book. Massive digital libraries (MDLs) have had 
substantial impact on the world. Weiss provides a solid case on the potential that MDLs 
have for future use in libraries.

Weiss splits the book into three sections: background, philosophical issues, and 
practical applications. The first four chapters cover background. He presents a very 
short history in the first chapter on digital libraries, the merging of libraries and com-
puter science and engineering, and other interesting topics. In the second chapter, 
Weiss tackles defining MDLs by outlining criteria and characteristics of an MDL, in-
cluding collection size; acquisitions, collection development, and copyright concerns; 
collection diversity; and more. Weiss looks at several MDLs from the United States 
and Europe in the third chapter, such as HathiTrust, Google Books, and Europeana. 
He provides fact sheets on each project, giving the reader an easy-to-read overview 
of the particular MDL.

In the fourth chapter, Weiss takes traditional library roles, like providing access 
to print material and rare or old materials, interlibrary loan, and course reserves and 
discusses how MDLs may impact them. He includes examples, such as the Spanish 
Language Virtual Library of Historical Newspapers project, the Vatican library’s digiti-
zation project, and Melville’s Marginalia. This chapter includes information on MDLs’ 
effect on collection development, consortium opportunities, preservation and quality 
of digital and print assets, challenges with metadata, and other topics. 

In the second part of his book, Weiss covers some important philosophical issues 
regarding MDLs. These projects can’t be addressed without mentioning copyright, of 
which the fifth chapter is devoted. Weiss argues that copyright law benefits not the 
authors or creators of content; instead, it benefits distributors and publishers. He dis-
cusses three important lawsuits brought forth by publishers, not authors, fighting over 
copyright. Weiss also covers current copyright law, the Digital Millennium Copyright 
Act (DMCA), the impact of MDLs on copyright law, and other topics. This chapter has 
the most robust references and notes section. It would be worth it for those interested 
in copyright to take a look at this chapter. Weiss presents an interesting comparison of 
the collection development approaches of HathiTrust, Google Books, and other MDLs 
in chapter 6. A topic that goes hand in hand, according to the author, with collection 
development is collection diversity, covered in chapter 7. The author argues that di-
versity is related to collection development policy and discusses a few communities. 
The author addresses future directions, European criticism and approaches to content 
diversity, and positive trends in MDL diversity. 

Weiss looks at open access (OA) models and MDLs in chapter 8. There is a for-or-
against divide between publishers on OA, which only causes more of a rift between 
libraries and publishers. He mentions that most of the OA discussion has focused on 
journal publishing primarily, so he provides extensive discussion on OA books. Again, 
he looks at Google Books, HathiTrust, Europeana, and the Open Library in regard to 
digital content and copyright and presents pros and cons of each MDL. He argues 

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852 College & Research Libraries September 2015

that, if there comes a point when copyright laws releases its grip on digitized content, 
MDLs have the potential to be a highly effective OA tool. 

In part III, practical applications, Weiss looks at real-world use of MDLs. In chapter 
9, Weiss looks at how MDLs can be implemented in libraries to help user experience 
and to exploit their use of services such as Google and Google Scholar. He covers such 
services as Google’s “My Library” service, and Print-on-Demand. He makes some sug-
gestions as to how libraries could implement MDLs into their systems. He also mentions 
using a hybrid approach where libraries could provide users with a physical copy of 
a digitized public domain, print on demand, and that libraries could charge a small 
fee for this service. Weiss also discusses access and print preservation, aggregation 
of variant texts in regard to digital humanities, how MDLs can help decision making 
on weeding collections, how MDLs can be a solution to demand driven acquisitions, 
could be useful for course reserves to link out to an MDL. Other topics include pros 
and cons of using MDLs as a research tool for digital humanities, the Google Books 
n-gram viewer, real-world applications, integrating the online catalog with the Google 
Books API, and more.

In chapter 10, Weiss includes four case studies of library projects that evaluate 
MDLs: the legibility of Google Books; the quality of Google Books’ metadata; culture 
and MDLs; and the Keio University Google Books digitization partnership. Each of 
these studies provide interesting information on MDLs in libraries and are worth a 
read for anyone interested in real-world applications that other libraries are using.

Weiss’ book contains valuable information for anyone interested in MDLs and how 
they can be useful for libraries. Each chapter includes references and notes as needed, 
which could provide the reader additional valuable information. The index is well 
organized and highlights the essentials.

Weiss is the digital services librarian at the Oviatt Library at California State, 
Northridge. He credits Ryan James with coauthorship in some chapters.—Lizzy Walker, 
Wichita State University Libraries