Michael Sauers starts a small blog discussion about the Guinness Book of World Records causing trouble in school libraries based on a longer back and forth on the SYSTEMS mailing list including this interesting comment. [thanks david]
Tag: books
What is up with the Google Books settlement?
I’m as confused as you are about the Google Books settlement. I’ve found a few analyses helpful.
- Principles and Recommendations for the Google Book Search Settlement by my friend James Grimmelmann
- ARL’s 23 page document A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries & the Google Library Project Settlement
It’s a more “okay now walk the talk” look at what the settlement says explicitly, what it allows for, and how it should be handled.
Harvard decides to opt out of Google book scanning
In light of the recent Google Books/APA settlement, Harvard has examined the details and decided not to be part of the project after all.
Harvard’s university-library director, Robert C. Darnton, wrote in a letter to the library staff, “the settlement provides no assurance that the prices charged for access will be reasonable, especially since the subscription services will have no real competitors [and] the scope of access to the digitized books is in various ways both limited and uncertain.†He also expressed concern about the quality of the scanned books, which “in many cases will be missing photographs, illustrations, and other pictorial works, which will reduce their utility for research.â€
Update: According to the comments, I had this sort of wrong. Harvard is deciding to not have Google scan their copyrighted books but the digitzation project proceeds apace. Thanks Jon.
biblioburro!
Only the New York Times would call the act of getting books to people that don’t have them using locally appropriate technology “whimsical.” Here is the story of Luis Soriano and his Colombian Biblioburro (photo essay).