Melissa A. Brown and Kenneth D. Crews have self-archived "Control of Museum Art Images: The Reach and Limits of Copyright and Licensing" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Many museums and art libraries have digitized their collections of artworks. Digital imaging capabilities represent a significant development in the academic study of art, and they enhance the availability of art images to the public at large. The possible uses of these images are likewise broad. Many of these uses, however, are potentially defined by copyright law or by license agreements imposed by some museums and libraries that attempt to define allowable uses. Often, these terms and conditions will mean that an online image is not truly available for many purposes, including publication in the context of research or simple enjoyment. Not only do these terms and conditions restrict uses, they also have dubious legal standing after the Bridgeman case. This paper examines the legal premises behind claiming copyright in art images and the ability to impose license restrictions on their use.

This paper is one outcome of a study of museum licensing practices funded by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation. This paper is principally an introduction to the relevant law in the United States and a survey of examples of museum licenses. The project is in its early stages, with the expectation that later studies will expand on this introduction and provide greater analysis of the legal complications of copyright, the public domain, and the reach of license agreements as a means for controlling the use of artwork and potentially any other works, whether or not they fall within the scope of copyright protection.

Peter Hirtle has updated his useful "Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States" chart as of 1/1/2010.

Read more about it at "Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States—2010 Update—An Interview with Peter Hirtle."

The National Library of the Netherlands has released its Strategic Plan 2010-2013.

In the "Strategic priority 1" section (page 6), the document states that the library intends to ultimately "digitise all Dutch books, newspapers and periodicals from 1470." By 2013, it states that: “10% of all Dutch books, newspapers and periodicals have been digitised (60 million pages by the KB, 13 million by third parties).” (Thanks to ResourceShelf.)

Here's an excerpt:

One of the large, labour-intensive challenges is to digitise all the books, periodicals and newspapers that have appeared in the Netherlands. A component of this undertaking is the digitisation of the special pre-1800 collections for which a number of Dutch university libraries and the KB have together drawn up a project plan. In addition, the KB has collected since 1995 born digital publications (publications which are only published in digital form, such as websites, digital periodicals, e-books, etc.). The KB will intensify this undertaking. The KB aims to be able to offer customers all publications with as few restrictions as possible. Naturally the KB does this in close consultation with publishers and right holder organisations.

JISC has released Understanding the Costs of Digitisation: Detail Report.

Here's an excerpt:

This document is the detailed output of a study to synthesise the experiences of a range of digitisation projects to provide JISC and the digitisation community with an evidence base to support funding allocation, project planning and project and programme management. Case studies are drawn from five digitisation projects that supported this study, and links are provided to other resources that provide supporting information.

Also available: Understanding the Costs of Digitisation: A Briefing Paper.

The Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative has released Digitization Activities: Project Planning and Management Outline.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The aim of this document is to define activities relating to the digitization of original cultural materials, and to outline general steps for planning and management of this process. The activities described in this document address library/archival issues, imaging and conversion work, and IT infrastructure issues in particular, and were identified using project management outlines from several organizations with significant experience working with cultural materials. This document defines "digitization" as a complete process, and covers all project components from content selection through delivery of digitized objects into a repository environment.

Peter Hirtle, Cornell University Library's Senior Policy Advisor, is interviewed in "Removing All Restrictions: Cornell's New Policy on Use of Public Domain Reproductions," which has been published in the latest issue of Research Library Issues.

Here's an excerpt:

Restrictions on the use of public domain work, sometimes labeled "copyfraud," are generating increasing criticism from the scholarly community. With significant collections of public domain materials in their collections, research libraries are faced with the question of what restrictions, if any, to place on those who seek to scan or otherwise reproduce these resources with the intention of publication.

Cornell University Library has responded by adopting new permissions guidelines that open access by no longer requiring users to seek permission to publish public domain items duplicated from its collections. Users planning to scan and publish public domain material are still expected to determine that works are in the public domain where they live (since public domain determinations can vary internationally). Users must also respect noncopyright rights, such as the rights of privacy, publicity, and trademark. The Library will continue to charge service fees associated with the reproduction of analog material or the provision of versions of files different than what is freely available on the Web. The new guidelines are found at http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/guidelines.html.

The Cornell University Library has published Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums by Peter B. Hirtle, Emily Hudson, and Andrew T. Kenyon. A PDF copy of the book can be freely downloaded and the print version can be purchased from CreateSpace.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

How can cultural heritage institutions legally use the Internet to improve public access to the rich collections they hold?

"Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums," a new book by published today by Cornell University Library, can help professionals at these institutions answer that question.

Based on a well-received Australian manual written by Emily Hudson and Andrew T. Kenyon of the University of Melbourne, the book has been developed by Cornell University Library's senior policy advisor Peter B. Hirtle, along with Hudson and Kenyon, to conform to American law and practice.

The development of new digital technologies has led to fundamental changes in the ways that cultural institutions fulfill their public missions of access, preservation, research, and education. Many institutions are developing publicly accessible Web sites that allow users to visit online exhibitions, search collection databases, access images of collection items, and in some cases create their own digital content. Digitization, however, also raises the possibility of copyright infringement. It is imperative that staff in libraries, archives, and museums understand fundamental copyright principles and how institutional procedures can be affected by the law.

"Copyright and Cultural Institutions" was written to assist understanding and compliance with copyright law. It addresses the basics of copyright law and the exclusive rights of the copyright owner, the major exemptions used by cultural heritage institutions, and stresses the importance of "risk assessment" when conducting any digitization project. Case studies on digitizing oral histories and student work are also included.

Hirtle is the former director of the Cornell Institute for Digital Collections, and the book evolved from his recognition of the need for such a guide when he led museum and library digitization projects. After reading Hudson and Kenyon's Australian guidelines, he realized that an American edition would be invaluable to anyone contemplating a digital edition.

Anne R. Kenney, the Carl A. Kroch University Librarian at Cornell University, noted: "The Library has a long tradition of making available to other professionals the products of its research and expertise. I am delighted that this new volume can join the ranks with award-winning library publications on digitization and preservation."

As an experiment in open-access publishing, the Library has made the work available in two formats. Print copies of the work are available from CreateSpace, an Amazon subsidiary. In addition, the entire text is available as a free download through eCommons, Cornell University's institutional repository, and from SSRN.com, which already distributes the Australian guidelines.

JISC has released DiSCmap: Digitisation in Special Collections: Mapping, Assessment, Prioritisation. Final Report..

Here's an excerpt:

In its widest sense the project contributes towards preliminary evidence on user-driven priorities which could help in the process of allocation of funding for digitisation projects. It also can help to define the purpose, value and impact of digitisation not on institutional basis but on UK HE scale. By development of a framework of user-driven prioritisation criteria, DiSCmap contributes towards the longer-term goal of developing a quantifiable and adjustable system of metrics in the digitisation life cycle especially addressing the selection phase.

The amount of collections nominated to the long list [of 945 collections nominated for digitisation] reached beyond the expectations of the project team. This list itself is a valuable outcome which should be enriched further in order to provide a broad and trustworthy basis for the future digitisation decisions. DiSCmap surveyed over 1000 intermediaries and end users; this report presents in a very condensed form only a small proportion of the total evidence on user demand gathered by the project team. Yet in analysing and representing fully the range of end user priorities, DiSCmap has made a considerable advance in identifying the actual digitisation needs of end users. It has done so with the aim of removing the element of guesswork and assumption hitherto inherent in our understanding of user requirements in this area. The combination of intermediary' and end user' studies provides a richness of view points which highlight the many important different aspects related to the user dimension in digitisation.

The Yale University Library has been awarded two grants totaling $890,000 to digitize Middle Eastern materials.

Here's an excerpt from "Yale Digitizes Documents":

The Yale University Library has received a $650,000 four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to digitize Syrian and Palestinian government records, and a $240,000 joint grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Joint Information Systems Committee to digitize Middle Eastern scholarly materials, according to a press release Thursday. The library will use advanced technology to translate the digitized text into searchable text, which will be available online.

The Harvard College Library and the National Library of China will collaborate to digitize and make freely available the 51,500-volume Chinese rare book collection of Harvard-Yenching Library.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Among the largest cooperative projects of its kind ever undertaken between China and US libraries, the project will digitize Harvard-Yenching Library's entire 51,500-volume Chinese rare book collection. One of the libraries which make up the Harvard College Library system, Harvard-Yenching is the largest university library for East Asian research in the Western world. When completed, the project will have a transformative affect on scholarship involving rare Chinese texts, Harvard-Yenching Librarian James Cheng predicted. . . .

The six-year project will be done in two three-year phases. The first phase, beginning in January 2010, will digitize books from the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, which date from about 960 AD to 1644. The second phase, starting in January 2013, will digitize books from the Qing Dynasty, which date from 1644 until 1795. The collection includes materials which cover an extensive range of subjects, including history, philosophy, drama, belles letters and classics.

All of the rare books will have to be examined carefully to identify those that are fragile, damaged, or are sewn in a way that hides text along the binding margin. To determine which volumes may need conservation treatment, project manager Sharon Li-Shiuan Yang, head of access services at Harvard-Yenching Library, and her team will receive training in basic condition assessment from the Weissman Preservation Center, which treats Harvard's rare library materials. Items needing repair will be sent to the Weissman for treatment by conservators before being digitized.

The digitization work will be performed by HCL Imaging Services group in its state-of-the-art lab in Widener Library, where staff members have been working to design new equipment and workflows in preparation for the huge project, said Imaging Services head Bill Comstock.

The scale of the project will present HCL and the National Library of China with many organizational and technical challenges," Comstock said. "We look forward to partnering with NLC staff, led by Dr. Zhi-geng Wang, the Director of the NLC's Department for Digital Resources and Services, to build innovative new tools and procedures that will make our work on this and other projects more robust and efficient."