Google Books

Google Books
Google Book Search Beta logo.png
Google Books Hamlet.png
Google Books screenshot
Developer(s) Google
Operating system Any (web based application)
Type Online Library Book Search
Website books.google.com

Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search and Google Print) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2004. Google's Library Project, also now known as Google Book Search, was announced in December 2004.

Results from Google Book Search show up in both general web search at google.com and through the dedicated Google Books site (books.google.com). Up to three results from the Google Books index may be displayed, if relevant, above other search results in the Google Web search service (google.com).

Subscribing users can click on a result from Google Books that opens an interface in which the user may view pages from the book, if out of copyright or if the copyright owner has given permission. Books in the public domain are available in "full view" and free for download. For in print books, Google limits the number of viewable pages through a variety of access limitations and security measures, some based on user-tracking.[1] For books that may be covered by copyright and where the owner has not been identified, only "snippets" (two to three lines of text) are shown, though the full text of the book is searchable.

Content-related advertisements appear alongside search results but not next to previewed books. The site provides links to the publisher's website and booksellers.

The Google Books database continues to grow. For users outside the United States, though, Google must be sure that the work in question is indeed out of copyright under local laws. According to a member of the Google Books Support Team, "Since whether a book is in the public domain can often be a tricky legal question, we err on the side of caution and display at most a few snippets until we have determined that the book has entered the public domain."[2] Users outside the United States can however access a large number of public domain books scanned by Google using copies stored on the Internet Archive.[3]

Many of the books are scanned using the Elphel 323 camera[4][5] at a rate of 1,000 pages per hour.[6]

The initiative has been hailed for its potential to offer unprecedented access to what may become the largest online corpus of human knowledge[7][8] and promoting the democratization of knowledge,[9] but it has also been criticized for potential copyright violations.[9][10]

In 2010 Google estimated that there are 130 million unique books in the world.[11]

Contents

Number scanned

On October 9, 2009, Google announced that the number of scanned books is over ten million.[12] Most scanned works are no longer in print or commercially available.[13]

Competition

Timeline

2004

December 2004 Google signaled an extension to its Google Print initiative known as the Google Print Library Project.[19] Google announced partnerships with several high-profile university and public libraries, including the University of Michigan, Harvard (Harvard University Library), Stanford (Green Library), Oxford (Bodleian Library), and the New York Public Library. According to press releases and university librarians, Google plans to digitize and make available through its Google Books service approximately 15 million volumes within a decade. The announcement soon triggered controversy, as publisher and author associations challenged Google's plans to digitize, not just books in the public domain, but also titles still under copyright.

2005

September–October 2005 Two lawsuits against Google charge that the company has not respected copyrights and has failed to properly compensate authors and publishers. One is a class action suit on behalf of authors (Authors Guild v. Google, Sept. 20 2005) and the other is a civil lawsuit brought by five large publishers and the Association of American Publishers. (McGraw Hill v. Google, Oct. 19 2005)[10][20][21][22][23][24]

November 2005: Google changed the name of this service from Google Print to Google Book Search.[25] Its program enabling publishers and authors to include their books in the service was renamed "Google Books Partner Program" (see Google Library Partners) and the partnership with libraries became Google Books Library Project.

2006

August 2006: The University of California System announced that it would join the Books digitization project. This includes a portion of the 34 million volumes within the approximately 100 libraries managed by the System.[26]

September 2006: The Complutense University of Madrid becomes the first Spanish-language library to join the Google Books Library Project.[27]

October 2006: The University of Wisconsin–Madison announced that it would join the Book Search digitization project along with the Wisconsin Historical Society Library. Combined, the libraries have 7.2 million holdings.[28]

November 2006: The University of Virginia joins the project. Its libraries contain more than five million volumes and more than 17 million manuscripts, rare books and archives.[29]

2007

January 2007: The University of Texas at Austin announced that it would join the Book Search digitization project. At least one million volumes will be digitized from the University's 13 library locations.

March 2007: The Bavarian State Library announced a partnership with Google to scan more than a million public domain and out-of-print works in German as well as English, French, Italian, Latin, and Spanish.[30]

May 2007: A book digitizing project partnership was announced jointly by Google and the Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne.[31]

May 2007: The Boekentoren Library of Ghent University will participate with Google in digitizing and making digitized versions of 19th century books in the French and Dutch languages available online.[32]

June 2007: The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) announced that its twelve member libraries would participate in scanning 10 million books over the course of the next six years.[33]

July 2007: Keio University became Google's first library partner in Japan with the announcement that they would digitize at least 120,000 public domain books.[34]

August 2007: Google announced that it would digitize up to 500,000 both copyrighted and public domain items from Cornell University Library. Google will also provide a digital copy of all works scanned to be incorporated into the university's own library system.[35]

September 2007: Google added a feature that allows users to share snippets of books that are in the public domain. The snippets may appear exactly as they do in the scan of the book or as plain text.[36]

September 2007: Google debuts a new feature called "My Library" which allows users to create personal customized libraries, selections of books that they can label, review, rate, or full-text search.[37]

December 2007: Columbia University was added as a partner in digitizing public domain works.[38]

2008

May 2008: Microsoft tapers off and plans to end its scanning project which reached 750,000 books and 80 million journal articles.[39]

October 2008: A settlement is reached between the publishing industry and Google after two years of negotiation. Google agrees to compensate authors and publishers in exchange for the right to make millions of books available to the public.[10][40]

November 2008: Google reaches the 7 million book mark for items scanned by Google and by their publishing partners. 1 million are in full preview mode and 1 million are fully viewable and downloadable public domain works. About five million are currently out of print.[13][41][42]

December 2008: Google announces the inclusion of magazines in Google Books. Titles include New York Magazine, Ebony, Popular Mechanics, and others.[43][44]

2009

May 2009: At the annual BookExpo convention in New York, Google signaled its intent to introduce a program that would enable publishers to sell digital versions of their newest books direct to consumers through Google.[45]

In December 2009 a French court shut down the scanning of copyrighted books published in France saying it violated copyright laws. It was the first major legal loss for the scanning project.[46]

2010

April 2010: Visual artists were not included in the previous lawsuit and settlement, and are the plaintiff groups in another law suit, and say they intend to bring more than just Google Books under scrutiny. “The new class action,” reads the statement, “goes beyond Google’s Library Project, and includes Google’s other systematic and pervasive infringements of the rights of photographers, illustrators and other visual artists.” [47]

May 2010 : It is reported that Google will launch a digital book store termed as Google Editions.[48] It will compete with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple and other electronic book retailers with its very own e-book store. Unlike others, Google Editions will be completely online and will not require a specific device (such as kindle, Nook, iPad, etc.).

Google Books Library Project participants

The number of participating institutions has grown since the inception of the Google Books Library Project;[19] The University of Mysore has been mentioned in many media reports as being a library partner.[49][50] They are not, however, listed as a partner by Google.[51]

Initial partners

Additional partners

Other institutional partners have joined the Project since the partnership was first announced.

Copyright infringement, fair use and related issues

The publishing industry and writers' groups have criticized the project's inclusion of snippets of copyrighted works as infringement. In late 2005 the Authors Guild of America and Association of American Publishers separately sued Google, citing "massive copyright infringement." Google countered that its project represented a fair use and is the digital age equivalent of a card catalog with every word in the publication indexed.[10] Despite Google taking measures to provide full text of only works in public domain, and providing only a searchable summary online for books still under copyright protection, publishers maintain that Google has no right to copy full text of books with copyrights and save them, in large amounts, into its own database.[52]

Other lawsuits followed but in 2006 a German lawsuit was withdrawn.[53] In June 2006, Hervé de la Martinière,[54] a French publisher known as La Martinière and Éditions du Seuil,[55] announced its intention to sue Google France.[56] In 2009, the Paris Civil Court awarded €300,000 (approximately US$430,000) in damages and interest and ordered Google to pay €10,000 a day until it removes the publisher's books from its database.[55][57] The court wrote, "Google violated author copyright laws by fully reproducing and making accessible on the site" books that Seuil owns without its permission[55] and that Google "committed acts of breach of copyright, which are of harm to the publishers".[54] Google said it will appeal.[55] Syndicat National de l'Edition, which joined the lawsuit, said Google has scanned about 100,000 French works under copyright.[55]

In December 2009, Chinese author Mian Mian filed a civil lawsuit for $8,900 against Google for scanning her novel, Acid Lovers. This is the first such lawsuit to be filed against Google in China.[58]

In March 2007, Thomas Rubin, associate general counsel for copyright, trademark, and trade secrets at Microsoft, accused Google of violating copyright law with their book search service. Rubin specifically criticized Google's policy of freely copying any work until notified by the copyright holder to stop.[59]

Siva Vaidhyanathan, associate professor of Media Studies and Law at the University of Virginia has argued[60] that the project poses a danger for the doctrine of fair use, because the fair use claims are arguably so excessive that it may cause judicial limitation of that right.[61] It can also be said that, because rights are almost always inherently limited in some way, judicial consideration per se, including limitation, of the principle poses no "threat" at all (and might produce benefit through articulated consideration and delineation - that would have not otherwise occurred - of the principle ). Because Author's Guild v. Google did not go to court, the fair use dispute is left unresolved.

Google licensing of public domain works is also an area of concern due to using of digital watermarking techniques with the books. Some published works that are in the public domain, such as all works created by the U.S. Federal government, are still treated like other works under copyright, and therefore locked after 1922.[62]

Settlement agreement

The Authors Guild, the publishing industry and Google entered into a settlement agreement October 28, 2008, with Google agreeing to pay a total of $125 million to rights-holders of books they had scanned, to cover the plaintiffs' court costs, and to create a Book Rights Registry. The settlement has to be approved by the court, which could occur some time after October 2009.[10] Reaction to the settlement has been mixed, with Harvard Library, one of the original contributing libraries to Google Library, choosing to withdraw its partnership with Google if "more reasonable terms" cannot be found.[63] As part of the $125 million settlement signed in October 2008, Google created a Google Book Settlement web site that went active on February 11, 2009. This site allows authors and other rights holders of out-of-print (but copyright) books to submit a claim by June 5, 2010.[64] In return they will receive $60 per full book, or $5 to $15 for partial works.[64] In return, Google will be able to index the books and display snippets in search results, as well as up to 20% of each book in preview mode.[64] Google will also be able to show ads on these pages and make available for sale digital versions of each book.[64] Authors and copyright holders will receive 63 percent of all advertising and e-commerce revenues associated with their works.[64]

In the US, several organizations who took no part of the settlement, like the American Society of Journalists and Authors, criticized the settlement fundamentally.[65] Moreover, the New York book settlement is not restricted to US authors, but relevant to authors of the whole world. This led to objections even on the level of some European governments and critical voices in many European newspapers.[66]

In October 2009, Google countered ongoing critics by stating that its scanning of books and putting them online would protect the world's cultural heritage; Google co-founder Sergey Brin stated, "The famous Library of Alexandria burned three times, in 48 BC, AD 273 and AD 640, as did the Library of Congress, where a fire in 1851 destroyed two-thirds of the collection. I hope such destruction never happens again, but history would suggest otherwise."[67] This characterization was rebuked by Pam Samuelson, UC Berkeley Professor of Law[68] saying "Libraries everywhere are terrified that Google will engage in price-gouging when setting prices for institutional subscriptions to GBS contents ... Brin forgot to mention another significant difference between GBS and traditional libraries: their policies on patron privacy. ... Google has been unwilling to make meaningful commitments to protect user privacy. Traditional libraries, by contrast, have been important guardians of patron privacy."[69]

Language issues

Some European politicians and intellectuals have criticized Google's effort on "language-imperialism" grounds, arguing that because the vast majority of books proposed to be scanned are in English, it will result in disproportionate representation of natural languages in the digital world. German, Russian, and French, for instance, are popular languages in scholarship; the disproportionate online emphasis on English could shape access to historical scholarship, and, ultimately, the growth and direction of future scholarship. Among these critics is Jean-Noël Jeanneney, the president of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.[70]

Research issues

It has been argued that the use of Google Books as a research tool represents a fundamental change in how knowledge or information is used and assimilated.[71]

Google Books versus Google Scholar

While Google Books has digitized large numbers of journal back issues, its scans do not include the metadata required for identifying specific articles in specific issues. This has led the makers of Google Scholar to start their own program to digitize and host older journal articles (in agreement with their publishers).[72]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Greg Duffy (March 2005). "Google's Cookie and Hacking Google Print". Kuro5hin. http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/3/7/95844/59875. 
  2. ↑ Ryan Sands (November 9, 2006). "From the mail bag: Public domain books and downloads" (blog). Inside Google Book Search. http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2006/11/from-mail-bag-public-domain-books-and.html. 
  3. ↑ Archive.org
  4. ↑ Google currently uses Elphel cameras for book scanning and for capturing street imagery in Google Maps
  5. ↑ "Adapted firmware of Elphel 323 camera to meet needs of Google Book Search"
  6. ↑ Kelly, Kevin (May 14, 2006). "Scan This Book!". New York Times Magazine. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/magazine/14publishing.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2008-03-07. "When Google announced in December 2004 that it would digitally scan the books of five major research libraries to make their contents searchable, the promise of a universal library was resurrected. ... From the days of Sumerian clay tablets till now, humans have "published" at least 32 million books, 750 million articles and essays, 25 million songs, 500 million images, 500,000 movies, 3 million videos, TV shows and short films and 100 billion public Web pages." 
  7. ↑ Bergquist, Kevin (2006-02-13). "Google project promotes public good". The University Record (University of Michigan). http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/0506/Feb13_06/02.shtml. Retrieved 2007-04-11. 
  8. ↑ Pace, Andrew K. (January 2006). "Is This the Renaissance or the Dark Ages?". American Libraries. American Library Association. http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/techspeaking/2006columnsa/techJan2006.cfm. Retrieved 2007-04-11. "Google made instant e-book believers out of skeptics even though 10 years of e-book evangelism among librarians had barely made progress." 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Malte Herwig, "Google's Total Library", Spiegel Online International, Mar. 28, 2007.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 Copyright infringement suits against Google and their settlement: "Copyright Accord Would Make Millions More Books Available Online". Google Press Center. http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20081027_booksearchagreement.html. Retrieved November 22, 2008. 
  11. ↑ "Books of the world". Google. August 5, 2010. http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2010/08/books-of-world-stand-up-and-be-counted.html. Retrieved 2010-08-15. "After we exclude serials, we can finally count all the books in the world. There are 129,864,880 of them. At least until Sunday." 
  12. ↑ "A tale of 10,000,000 books". Google. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/tale-of-10000000-books.html. Retrieved 2009-10-11. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 "In Google Book Settlement, Business Trumps Ideals". PC World. October 28, 2008. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/153085/in_google_book_settlement_business_trumps_ideals.html. Retrieved 2008-10-31. "Of the seven million books Google has scanned, one million are in full preview mode as part of formal publisher agreements. Another one million are public domain works." 
  14. ↑ "Microsoft starts online library in challenge to Google Books". AFP (Melbourne). 2006-12-08. http://www.theage.com.au/news/biztech/microsoft-starts-online-library-in-challenge-to-google-books/2006/12/07/1165081127665.html. Retrieved 2008-11-24. "Microsoft launched an online library in a move that pits the world's biggest software company against Google's controversial project to digitize the world's books." 
  15. ↑ "Europe's Answer to Google Book Search Crashes on Day 1". Wired. 2008. http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/11/eu-launches-mas.html. Retrieved 2008-11-24. 
  16. ↑ European Commission (2008-11-20). "Europeana – Europe's Digital Library: Frequently Asked Questions". Press release. http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/08/724&format=HTML&language=EN. Retrieved 2008-11-26. 
  17. ↑
  18. ↑ Languagehat.com
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 O'Sullivan, Joseph and Adam Smith. "All booked up," Googleblog. December 14, 2004.
  20. ↑ "Authors Guild v. Google Settlement Resources Page". Authors Guild. http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy/articles/settlement-resources.html. Retrieved November 22, 2008. 
  21. ↑ "A new chapter". The Economist. October 30, 2008. http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12523914. Retrieved November 22, 2008. 
  22. ↑ Aiken, Paul (2005-09-20). "Authors Guild Sues Google, Citing "Massive Copyright Infringement"". Authors Guild. http://www.authorsguild.org/news/sues_google_citing.htm. Retrieved 2007-04-11. 
  23. ↑ Gilbert, Alorie (2005-10-19). "Publishers sue Google over book search project". CNET News. http://news.com.com/Publishers+sue+Google+over+book+search+project/2100-1030_3-5902115.html. Retrieved 2007-04-11. 
  24. ↑ "The McGraw Hill Companies, Inc.; Pearson Education, Inc.; Penguin Group (USA) Inc.; Simon and Schuster, Inc.; John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Plaintiffs, v. Google Inc., Defendant" (PDF). http://publishers.org/main/Copyright/attachments/40_McGraw-Hill_v_Google.pdf. Retrieved 2007-10-05.  PDF file of the complaint. SD. N.Y. Case No. 05-CV-8881-JES.
  25. ↑ Jen Grant (November 17, 2005). "Judging Book Search by its cover" (blog). Googleblog. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/judging-book-search-by-its-cover.html. 
  26. ↑ UC libraries partner with Google to digitize books
  27. ↑ University Complutense of Madrid and Google to Make Hundreds of Thousands of Books Available Online
  28. ↑ UW–Madion + WHS + Google digitization project partnership announced
  29. ↑ The University of Virginia Library Joins the Google Books Library Project
  30. ↑ Bavarian State Library + Google digitizing project partnership announced
  31. ↑ Reed, Brock. "La Bibliothèque, C'est Google" (Wired Campus Newsletter), Chronicle of Higher Education. May 17, 2007.
  32. ↑ Ghent/Gent + Google digitizing project partnership announced
  33. ↑ CIC + Google digitizing project partnership announced
  34. ↑ Keio + Google digitizing project partnership announced
  35. ↑ Cornell + Google digitizing project partnership announced
  36. ↑ Google's digitized "snippets" feature announced
  37. ↑ Google's "personal library" feature announced
  38. ↑ Columbia + Google digitizing project partnership announced
  39. ↑ Helft, Miguel (May 24, 2008). "Microsoft Will Shut Down Book Search Program". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/technology/24soft.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2008-05-24. "Microsoft said it had digitized 750,000 books and indexed 80 million journal articles." 
  40. ↑ Cohen, Noam (February 1, 2009). "Some Fear Google's Power in Digital Books". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/technology/internet/02link.html?em. Retrieved 2009-02-02. "Today, that project is known as Google Book Search and, aided by a recent class-action settlement, it promises to transform the way information is collected: who controls the most books; who gets access to those books; how access will be sold and attained." 
  41. ↑ "Massive EU online library looks to compete with Google". Agence France-Presse. November 2008. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gQBJ3FLg32GX_cAVFLQo1feO6Ckg. Retrieved 2008-11-24. "Google, one of the pioneers in this domain on the other hand, claims to have seven million books available for its "Google Book Search" project, which saw the light of day at the end of 2004." 
  42. ↑ Rich, Motoko (January 4, 2009). "Google Hopes to Open a Trove of Little-Seen Books". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/technology/internet/05google.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2009-01-05. "The settlement may give new life to copyrighted out-of-print books in a digital form and allow writers to make money from titles that had been out of commercial circulation for years. Of the seven million books Google has scanned so far, about five million are in this category." 
  43. ↑ "Google updates search index with old magazines". MSNBC. Associated Press. December 10, 2008. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28156997/. Retrieved June 29, 2009. "As part of its quest to corral more content published on paper, Google Inc. has made digital copies of more than 1 million articles from magazines that hit the newsstands decades ago." 
  44. ↑ Googleblog.blogspot.com
  45. ↑ Rich, Motoko (2009-06-01). "Preparing to Sell E-Books, Google Takes on Amazon". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/technology/internet/01google.html. Retrieved 2009-05-31. 
  46. ↑ Faure, Gaelle (December 19, 2009). "French court shuts down Google Books project". Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-france-google19-2009dec19,0,548537.story. Retrieved 2009-12-19. 
  47. ↑ Mashable.com
  48. ↑ Online.wsj.com
  49. ↑ Ars Technica
  50. ↑ Hindustani Times "Google to digitise 800,000 books at Mysore varsity"
  51. ↑ Google Library Partners
  52. ↑ People's Daily Online (August 15, 2005). "Google's digital library suspended". http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200508/15/eng20050815_202595.html. 
  53. ↑ Danny Sullivan (2006-06-28). "Google Book Search Wins Victory In German Challenge" (blog). Search Engine Watch. http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060628-152950. Retrieved 2006-11-11. 
  54. ↑ 54.0 54.1 Sage, Adam (December 19, 2009). "French publishers toast triumph over Google". The Times of London. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article6962221.ece. Retrieved 2009-12-18. 
  55. ↑ 55.0 55.1 55.2 55.3 55.4 Smith, Heather (December 18, 2009). "Google's French Book Scanning Project Halted by Court". Bloomberg. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=apZ3UG9CPLo8. Retrieved 2009-12-18. 
  56. ↑ John Oates (June 7, 2006). "French publisher sues Google". The Register. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/07/france_sues_google/. 
  57. ↑ "Fine for Google over French books". BBC News. December 18, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8420876.stm. Retrieved 2009-12-18. 
  58. ↑ Redorbit.com
  59. ↑ Thomas Claburn (March 6, 2007). "Microsoft Attorney Accuses Google Of Copyright Violations". InformationWeek. http://www.informationweek.com/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197800578. 
  60. ↑ Siva Vaidhyanathan,. "The Googlization of Everything and the Future of Copyright," University of California Davis Law Review volume 40 (March 2007), pp. 1207–1231, Lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu (pdf)
  61. ↑ First Monday Transcript September 2007.
  62. ↑ Robert B. Townsend, Google Books: Is It Good for History?, Perspectives (September 2007).
  63. ↑ "Google Online Book Deal at Risk". http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=524989. 
  64. ↑ 64.0 64.1 64.2 64.3 64.4 "Google Book Settlement Site Is Up; Paying Authors $60 Per Scanned Book", by Erick Schonfeld on February 11, 2009, at TechCrunch
  65. ↑ American Society of Journalists and Authors
  66. ↑ Es wird Zeit, dass die Bundesregierung eingreift
  67. ↑ BBC: Google hits back at book critics
  68. ↑ Openbookalliance.og
  69. ↑ Google Books Is Not a Library
  70. ↑ Jean-Noël Jeanneney (2006-10-23) (book abstract; Foreword by Ian Wilson). Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge: A View from Europe. ISBN 0-226-39577-4. 
  71. ↑ Newenglishreview.org
  72. ↑ Barbara Quint, "Changes at Google Scholar: A Conversation With Anurag Acharya", Information Today, August 27, 2007.

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