HathiTrust Launching Full-Text Library of Books; Information Today, 10/22/09

Barbara Quint, Information Today; HathiTrust Launching Full-Text Library of Books:

"With all the controversy still swirling around Google Books and its post-settlement offerings, an alternative route to the millions of digitized books and journals supplied by leading Google Book Search library partners has arrived. The HathiTrust (www.hathitrust.org) is a collaboration of 25 research libraries already participating in Google Book Search to produce a shared digital repository for preservation and access to a curated collection. By mid-November, the HathiTrust Digital Library will have a full-featured, full-text search service for 4.3-5 million items. The searches will retrieve bibliographic citations and page references, including those for in-copyright books. Content will extend beyond the digitized copies of books returned to early library partners by Google. HathiTrust is pushing to acquire other digitized special collections from its members, as well as making arrangements for opening access to university press books.

Begun in October 2008, HathiTrust members currently include the 10 University of California system libraries, plus the California Digital Library, Indiana University, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, The Ohio State University, Penn State University, Purdue University, The University of Chicago, University of Illinois, University of Illinois at Chicago, The University of Iowa, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Virginia. The depository currently includes digitized volumes from the University of Michigan, University of California, Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin."

http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/HathiTrust-Launching-FullText-Library-of-Books-57575.asp

Google Books Settlement: The Chinese Chapter; Wall Street Journal, 10/20/09

Juliet Ye, Wall Street Journal; Google Books Settlement: The Chinese Chapter:

"Google’s troubles in China seem to have taken a new turn as a result of the company’s plan to create a vast digital library of books.

The China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS) has called on Chinese writers to stand up for their legal rights in the face of Web search giant Google’s proposed book settlement, according to a post published on the official Web site of Chinese Writers’ Association (CWA).
CWWCS claimed to have found copyrighted works written by a number of Chinese writers scanned and posted to Google’s digital library, Google Books."

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/10/20/google-books-settlement-the-chinese-chapter/

Google and the libraries, International Herald Tribune, 12/5/08

OpEd: Via International Herald Tribune: Google and the libraries:

"In 2004, Google signed a deal with five major research libraries to digitize all the books in their collections. "Google's mission is to organize the world's information, and we're excited to be working with libraries to help make this mission a reality" proclaimed company cofounder Larry Page. It looked like an encouraging first step toward a world in which all knowledge was online, all the time.

Not everyone was so enthralled with this beatific vision of the Future According to Google.

Authors had the temerity to insist they be paid for their digitized content, which was going to be used to sell Google ads, or, down the road, be loaded into a possible Google Reader. The Authors Guild sued, and eventually settled with Google, resulting in a complicated agreement about royalty payments that awaits the approval of a judge.

Libraries excluded from the Google project wondered where they would fit in. The words "Free to All" are etched in stone above the Boston Public Library, but last I checked, those words do not appear on the fuselages of the Boeings and Gulfstreams owned by Google founders Page and Sergey Brin.

Google executives sound like they are doing the world an immense favor by digitizing books, rarely mentioning that they are in business to sell stuff, not give it away...

In a heated philippic, "Free Our Libraries!" posted on the Web site of the Boston Library Consortium, Richard Johnson, an adviser to the Association of Research Libraries, decries the "momentous, ill-considered shift...that threatens to limit the public rights in the collections assembled and maintained, often at public expense, in libraries around the globe."

"Companies are paying nothing for access to the crown jewels," Johnson writes. "We may awaken one day to find that our digital heritage has become private property rather than a public good."

Librarians of the world, unite! You have everything to lose: your books."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/05/opinion/edbeam.php

Markets Declare Truce in Copyright Wars, Google concedes that information isn't free, Wall Street Journal, 11/17/08

Wall Street Journal: Markets Declare Truce in Copyright Wars, Google concedes that information isn't free:

"This shift by Google led Peter Osnos, founder of PublicAffairs books, to wonder if the book settlement could have lessons for other owners of content. "Google has now conceded, with a very large payment, that information is not free," Mr. Osnos wrote for the Century Foundation. "This leads to an obvious, critical question: Why aren't newspapers and news magazines demanding payment for use of their stories on Google and other search engines? Why are they not getting a significant slice of the advertising revenues generated by use of their stories via Google?"

Alas for the troubled news media industry, so much of its news is commoditized that people won't pay for it online. But as digital media mature, we'll see more redefinitions of legal concepts such as fair use. There will also be revisions of business practices regarding who gets paid what by whom. The Google settlement is a reminder that owners of intellectual property can choose to lock it away, give it away, or, most sensibly, share it in exchange for reasonable compensation.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122688619008032339.html

Harvard Slams Google Settlement; Others React with Caution - Library Journal, 10/30/08

Via Library Journal: Harvard Slams Google Settlement; Others React with Caution:

"As LJ noted in its initial report, most observers say that the success of the deal will be in the details—and, as of now, this broad, complex business arrangement, still seeking court approval, simply leaves many questions open—especially for libraries. LJ has put together a quick roundup of thoughtful opinions now circulating about what the settlement means..."

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6610115.html