In a move with major significance for the worlds of academic research and publishing, the University of California is in talks to join Google's controversial project to digitize great libraries and offer books online.
Google is keen to have access to UC's 34 million volumes from 100 libraries on 10 campuses, which is described as collectively the largest academic research library in the world. UC wants to delve more deeply into the Internet revolution with a deep-pockets partner like Google paying the costs of scanning books....
Daniel Greenstein, UC's associate vice provost for scholarly information, said that joining the Google Books Library Project - with its ability to search for terms inside texts, not only in catalog listings - would help "create access like we've never had before to our cultural heritage and scholarly memory. It's a whole new paradigm."
In an interview Tuesday, Greenstein said that such digitizing offers protection for writings that might be lost in natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and earthquakes. "It's the kind of stewardship that is absolutely vital to us and the community in general," said Greenstein, who oversees digital projects for UC libraries.
A UC deal with Google could be announced within a month, officials said. However, the arrangement first faces close scrutiny from the UC regents and the publishing world for potential copyright issues and concerns that UC might lose out on future revenue....
To avoid [copyright] trouble, some of the libraries now allow scanning of only public domain books. But the University of Michigan and Google have said they do not need permission to allow a few sentences from copyrighted works online; such "fair use" quotation, they said, can help authors by boosting sales.
UC probably would follow the Michigan model in scanning works both in and out of copyright, Greenstein said. "This is not about breaking the law or stealing material," he said, stressing that university attorneys have approved the idea....
UC last year joined another online book scanning and posting project as part of the Open Content Alliance...Greenstein said UC would keep its membership in that alliance if it also joined the Google initiative. But he and other experts said Google offers much more capacity and resources for scanning. Google wants to digitize several million books in UC's holdings over the next six years or so, a scale the Alliance could not afford, he said....
"The sense is to move forward with caution and to be able to defend that this is fair to the university for the next 30 years," said board President Gerald L. Parsky. In an interview this week, UC Regent Norman J. Pattiz...said he too wanted to ensure that the university shared in any future revenues the pact might generate.
Comment. This is significant for many reasons. UC has the world's largest collection. It's not waiting for the lawsuits against the Google Library project to be resolved. If it joins, it will be the first since the lawsuits were filed, which may open the door for other institutions to join. Its lawyers think Google may lawfully scan copyrighted books, not just public-domain books. It will be the first institution to participate in both Google Library and the Open Content Alliance. And it may negotiate for a cut of Google's revenues from the program.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/02/2006 09:40:00 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.
