Susan Kuchinskas, Google Print Goes Live, InternetNews, May 27, 2005. Excerpt: 'Google opened the door to its online library late Thursday with the launch of a book-specific search page. Print.Google.Com makes official the search goliath's project to digitize the world's books. But the launch drew backlash from the Association of American University Presses, in the form of an open letter focusing on Google Library, a service that went live in December....Internetnews.com has learned that it took two years for Google to come to agreement with these libraries, and the talks were kept secret even from the universities' publishing units....As previously reported, one of Google's many patent applications describes a protocol that would request authorization from a publisher before retrieving a digital version of a book, permitting "subscription-like access." AAUP spokeswoman Brenna McLaughlin said her organization had no response yet from the Googleplex. "The point of the letter is there are so many questions out there about what exactly this entails," she said. "The letter was intended to start a dialog and elicit some answers to those questions." Google executives weren't available for comment. But Philip Pachoda, director of the University of Minnesota Press, called the letter "singularly ill-advised." He said the AAUP didn't contact him or his counterpart at Stanford University Press before publishing the letter. "By the tone of the letter, and by releasing it to the press prior even to reception by Google had the effect -- and possibly even the intention -- of cutting off discussion with Google, rather than encouraging it," Pachoda said. "The AAUP is not wrong in taking this seriously and examining it closely for intellectual and even economic damage to the press, but I don't think the letter shows sufficient appreciation for the complexity of the issues. This issue of copyright and fair use is one on which reasonable people can disagree," Pachoda said. "Some very savvy lawyers both here at Michigan and at the other institutions have concluded that this falls on the appropriate side of copyright case law."'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/28/2005 03:27:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
