Richard Byrne and Jennifer Howard, Participants in University-Press Group's Meeting Tackle Digital Publishing and Politics, Chronicle of Higher Education, June 20, 2005 (accessible only to subscribers). A report on this year's meeting of the American Association of University Presses (AAUP). Excerpt: 'The controversy over Google's plan to digitalize the books of its partners in the Library Project -- Harvard and Stanford Universities, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University of Oxford, and the New York Public Library -- made a discussion called "Online Opportunities" among the best-attended and most fractious at the meeting. The star witness was Tom Turvey, Google's director of strategic partner development, Web search, and syndication. "There's a lot of misinformation floating around, to say the least," he told a crowd that seemed by turns skeptical and hostile. One questioner floated the idea that Google would risk litigation just to "force the market to a decision." Mr. Turvey responded that "it's the nature of Google to crank out products and then improve them. On the other hand," he added, "I'd say we have great respect for copyright and copyright law." Mr. Turvey asked people in the audience who did Internet searches using Google or Google Print to raise their hands, then asked: "How many of you are hired assassins?" That got a laugh, but the audience was less amused by his reply to a question about whether publishers still control works scanned as part of the Library Project: "We are in active dialogue with our partners and other people in the industry about these issues," he said. At that, one audience member turned to the person next to her and whispered, "Where's my gun?"'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/20/2005 11:46:00 AM.
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.
