Copyright and the Digital Library
This paper describes the legal and technical issues which bedevil the creation of online libraries, particularly in relation to copyright. It discusses the Google Books settlement of October 2008 and a number of divergent views on its value or problems for libraries.
+ Full Paper (PDF; 120 KB)
Source: Jeffrey J. Irwin (via E-LIS)
Settlement Near in Google Book Search Lawsuit?
Rumors are swirling again that the long-running lawsuit between publishers and Google over its book-scanning program is on the verge of a settlement. According to a report in Library Journal, anonymous sources have let slip “that talk of a final agreement has indeed heated up, with one publishing insider confirming that a settlement was ‘imminent.’”
Google has been scanning millions of books through its Google Book Search program. The suit was brought in October 2005 by five publishers—McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education, the Penguin Group, Simon & Schuster, and John Wiley & Sons, all members of the Association of American Publishers. They seek an injunction against Google on the grounds that scanning a copyrighted work without permission goes far beyond the bounds of fair use.
Both sides dismissed the current whispers. A publishers’ association spokesperson suggested that “the rumor mill was starting its annual run-up to the Frankfurt Book Fair, which begins October 15,” Library Journal reported. A Google representative “also referenced previous rumors about a settlement, and declined comment,” saying the case is still in discovery.
But the story also noted the pressure on both sides to reach some kind of deal to avoid “what is setting up to be a messy trial.”
Source: Wired Campus (Chronicle of Higher Education)
From the announcement:
On Sept. 23, the Library of Congress added 38,810 newspaper pages to the Chronicling America Web site, expanding coverage into the 1880’s and including content published in Minnesota. The site now provides access to over 680,000 newspaper pages from 9 states and the District of Columbia. Chronicling America is a project of the National Digital Newspaper Program, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
Source: Chronicling America, Library of Congress
Free Our Libraries! Why We Need A New Approach to Putting Library Collections Online (PDF; 128 KB)
Long ago, mankind figured out that special kinds of public institutions are needed to preserve cultural heritage—libraries and museums. They’ve been a grand success, enabling successive generations to learn from and build on the record of man’s achievements and failures.
But a momentous, ill-considered shift is now afoot that threatens to limit the public rights in the collections assembled and maintained, often at public expense, in libraries around the globe.
Today Google and other businesses are scanning millions of books from the world’s great libraries and offering access to them on the Web. This conjures up the vision of a vast, free, Internet public library of accumulated knowledge. It seems like a marriage made in heaven—the union of corporate capital and enormous library collections, carrying knowledge into virtually every home and workplace.
Unfortunately, it’s not.
Source: Universal Access Digital Library Summit (Boston Library Consortium)
From 10,000-year-old American Indian tools and weapons to 20th century African masks, more than 26,000 artifacts in the Wake Forest University Museum of Anthropology’s collections will be accessible online in a searchable database.
Beginning Sept. 9, the public will be able to search the online database, www.wfu.edu/moa/database, and find a photograph and description of each object, including information about where it was collected.
From the SEL article by Chris Sherman:
Google, in partnership with a number of North American newspapers, ProQuest and Heritage, has begun digitizing printed newspapers, making them both searchable and browsable exactly as they appeared in print, including photographs, headlines, articles and advertisements.
More from the official Google blog post.
See Also: Chronicling America Newspaper Digitization from LC
See Also: FREE Special Collections of Historic Newspapers from NewspaperArchive.com
(Some of the free content here is available for a fee elsewhere).
A 2008 National Leadership Demonstration Grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) will enable Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh to digitally preserve more than 400,000 pages of historic materials related to the iron and steel industry and make them available to the public. The $600,000 grant, awarded today by IMLS director Dr. Anne-Imelda M. Radice, will finance “The Legacy of Iron and Steel” project.”
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the “The International Survey of Library & Museum Digitization Projects” report to their offering.
The study presents data from more than 100 library and museum digitization programs from academic, public and special libraries in the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, the UK and other countries. The mean annual budget for the digitization projects that contributed to the sample was $122,408, with a range from $0 to $1.963 million. The reports presents data on sources of funding, the outlook for raising money for additional projects, collaboration within and outside of institutions, staffing of digitization projects, spending on hardware and software, practices on rights, permissions and copyright clearance, outsourcing, staff training, impact of digitization on preservation mediums, cataloging issues, marketing of digitization projects and other aspects of library and museum digitization project management. Data is broken out by size and type of digitization project and by size and type of institution. Data is presented separately for text, photograph, audio, and film/video intensive projects.
Just of few of the report’s many findings are that:
- More than 60% of the funding for the projects in the sample is derived from the library budget itself. For U.S. libraries, close to 64% of funds for digitization projects comes from the library budget.
- A shade more than 20% of the organizations in the sample believe that the outlook for raising money for digitization projects from outside sources is not favorable, while more than 43% characterize it as ‘not too bad,’ more than 32% call it ‘pretty good’ and more than 4% characterize it as excellent.
- More than 53% of the organizations in the sample have teamed up with another department or faculty of the organization to work jointly on a digitization project.
(more…)
The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment has created a digital repository of the publications of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. This collection includes proceedings and papers dating back to 1901, from the records of the Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. This collection is now available on the UC Berkeley Library Web site, and also in the California Digital Library’s Calisphere and Online Archive of California (OAC).
Source: IWS Documented News Service
The U.S. Government Printing Office has launched an enhanced version of the Registry of U.S. Government Publication Digitization Projects. All listings from the previous iteration have been incorporated into the new site.
The enhanced Registry provides the ability to:
+ Browse digitization projects by category or alphabetically by title.
+ Search the entire Registry or filter searches by category or fields.
+ Quickly access new and recently updated listings.
+ Utilize RSS feeds to keep informed of new and updated projects.
+ View listings by contributor.
+ Contact fellow digitization participants.
+ Recommend listings to others.
+ Report broken links.
+++ And much more!
Source: Admin Notes
Lyon Municipal Library is Google’s 29th library partner for the project and its first in France.
Source: M2
The European Commission has urged member states to step up efforts to make Europe’s cultural heritage available to citizens at a mouse click.
Plans for a European digital library containing books, paintings, music, film and photographs are already underway but progress on making works digitally available has been slow with funding problems and lack of technical know-how dragging the ambitious project down.
According to commission figures, European libraries contain over 2.5 billion books but only around 1 percent of archival material has been made available online.
Source: EUobserver
Europe’s cultural diversity in books, music, paintings, photographs, and films open to all citizens at the click of a mouse via one portal – this dream of a European Digital Library could become reality this autumn. However, further efforts by the EU Member States are needed, said the Commission today in a new Communication on making available digital versions of works from cultural institutions all over Europe. Digitisation of cultural works can give Europeans access to material from museums, libraries and archives abroad without having to travel or turn hundreds of pages to find a piece of information. Europe’s libraries alone contain more than 2.5 billion books, but only about 1% of archival material is available in digital form. The Commission therefore called on Member States to do more to make digitised works available online for Europeans to browse them digitally, for study, work or leisure. The Commission itself will provide some € 120 million in 2009-2010 for improving online access to Europe’s cultural heritage.
“The European Digital Library will be a quick and easy way for people to access European books and art – whether in their home country or abroad. It will, for example, enable a Czech student to browse the British library without going to London, or an Irish art lover to get close to the Mona Lisa without queuing at the Louvre,” said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media.
Source: Rapid
See Also: EU digital library plans under threat (via Hollywood Reporter)
New from LC:
State Digital Resources: Memory Projects, Online Encyclopedias, Historical & Cultural Materials Collections
Source: Library of Congress
The National Library of Australia has launched a public beta of its ‘Australian Newspapers’ site. The site will offer access to scanned images and text from historic Australian newspapers dating from 1803 to 1954.
Source: PC World