Category: Search Engines and Discovery Systems

XC User Research Preliminary Report

Nancy Fried Foster has self-archived XC User Research Preliminary Report in UR Research.

Here's the abstract:

This report summarizes the objectives, methods, and major software design findings from the data collected in the user research portion of the eXtensible Catalog (XC) project. A full analysis and interpretation of the data is not included here and will be provided at the conclusion of the project. This report includes edited results from the brainstorming sessions and a list of the features that emerged from the analysis of those results.

“Google Book Search Settlement: Foster Competition, Escrow the Scans”

In "Google Book Search Settlement: Foster Competition, Escrow the Scans," Peter Eckersley proposes that digitized books involved in the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement be put in escrow for some period, then made freely available.

Here's an excerpt:

One good compromise might be to require that anyone who takes a blanket license (whether under the Google Book Search settlement, or under any legislation that might expand the settlement to others) must deposit a copy of the raw scans that they create with the Library of Congress or with the entity that administers the blanket license (e.g., the Books Rights Registry). After a period of years, let's say 14, the term of the Founder's Copyright, those scans should be made available at no cost to any others who take the relevant copyright licenses.

This would not only encourage market entry and competition in the online digital books arena, but would also foster innovation in the field. There's nothing that encourages digital innovation quite like access to an enormous dataset. After all, before Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google, they were graduate students at Stanford. They were able to build a new search engine by downloading their own copy of the web, messing around with it, and figuring our a better algorithm for querying it. New start-ups working with digital books should have the same kind of opportunity.

Justice Department Sends Civil Investigative Demands to Google about Google Book Search Settlement

The Justice Department has sent civil investigative demands to Google about the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement. Various state attorneys generals are also looking into the settlement.

Read more about it at "Google Book Deal Faces Growing Scrutiny," "Probe of Google Book Deal Heats Up," and "U.S. Presses Antitrust Inquiry Into Google Book Settlement."

“Deal or No Deal: What If the Google Settlement Fails?”

In "Deal or No Deal: What If the Google Settlement Fails?," Andrew Richard Albanese examines the uncertain future of the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement.

Here's an excerpt:

"This thing is going to die," one close observer of the settlement told PW [Publishers Weekly]. "Let's put it this way—with all the sketchy things in the agreement, there is no way [the parties] want people to look at this longer, rather than shorter."

Google and University of Michigan Sign Expanded Digitization Agreement

Google and the University of Michigan have signed an expanded digitization agreement that incorporates the terms of the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Specifically, the agreement:

Expands the scope of Google and University of Michigan's partnership:
The University of Michigan continues its tradition of leadership in library digitization by being the first library to expand its partnership with Google under the terms of Google's settlement agreement with a broad class of authors and publishers. The principles underlying the new agreement are to ensure access to our collection, to provide a solid foundation for future research and study, and to provide the greatest public good for patrons of libraries around the US.

Broadens public access to University of Michigan's collections:
Once the settlement is approved by the court, readers and students throughout the US will enjoy the benefits of University of Michigan's collections, including free previews, the ability to buy access to University of Michigan's books online, and institutional subscriptions.

Supports shared services with other libraries:
The agreement empowers University of Michigan to broaden public access to its collection by using digital files of books that Google scans to strengthen and support initiatives like HathiTrust.

Provides greater digital access to University of Michigan's collections for students and faculty:
University of Michigan will get a digital copy of every book held in their collection, whether it's scanned from Michigan or at another library.

Broadens access to public domain books from University of Michigan's collection:
The University of Michigan will be able to share digital copies of public domain works Google has digitized from its collection with fellow academic institutions, libraries, and other organizations for non-commercial purposes. These provisions enable Michigan to share its digital library collection with students, scholars, and other library users around the world.

Subsidizes University of Michigan's Institutional Subscription:
If approved by the court, Google's agreement with authors and publishers allows it to make millions of digitized books available to colleges and universities via a subscription. Under our new agreement, Google will subsidize the cost of Michigan's subscription based on the number of books scanned from Michigan. In practice, this means that Google will subsidize the entire cost of Michigan's institutional subscription–so that Michigan's students and staff will be able to access and read almost every book Google has digitized from 29 libraries around the world, for free.

Expands access for students, faculty, and patrons with disabilities:
Google will make public domain works digitized from Michigan's print library collection accessible to users with print disabilities in the same ways as in-copyright books covered under the settlement agreement.

Safeguards the public's access to knowledge:
Michigan's agreement includes collective terms Google has committed to that can be enjoyed by any of Google's other partner libraries. Michigan is the first university to sign on to these terms, which give libraries new ways to help safeguard the public's access to these books.

Establishes a mechanism to review prices:
Our agreement gives Michigan and other participating libraries the power to review the pricing of Institutional Subscriptions to make sure that they are priced for "broad penetration," as required by the settlement agreement. That means that the reviewer will evaluate whether subscriptions are affordable enough to allow universities, libraries, and other institutions across the country to take advantage of them.

If they determine that prices are too high, University of Michigan and other participating libraries who sign these collective terms can challenge the prices through arbitration, and Google will be required to work with the Registry to adjust the pricing accordingly.

Ensures access to millions of books for generations to come:
Google has committed to make the books it has scanned publicly available for free search, consumer purchase, institutional subscriptions, and other services established by the settlement agreement. Our agreement ensures that libraries and their patrons can continue to use digital copies of the millions of books Google has scanned well into the future, even if Google goes away.

Also see the press release.

ACRL, ALA, and ARL File Comments about Google Book Search Settlement

The American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries, and the Association of Research Libraries have filed comments with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York regarding the Google Book Search Copyright Class Action Settlement.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Representing over 139,000 libraries and 350,000 librarians, the associations filed the brief as members of the plaintiff class because they are both authors and publishers of books. The associations asserted that although the settlement has the potential to provide public access to millions of books, many of the features of the settlement, including the absence of competition for the new services, could compromise fundamental library values including equity of access to information, patron privacy, and intellectual freedom. The court can mitigate these possible negative effects by regulating the conduct of Google and the Book Rights Registry the settlement establishes.

"While this settlement agreement could provide unprecedented access to a digital library of millions of books, we are concerned that the cost of an institutional subscription may skyrocket, as academic journal subscriptions have over the past two decades," Erika Linke, President of ACRL, said. . . .

Jim Rettig, President of ALA, said the proposed settlement "offers no assurances that the privacy of what the public accessed will be protected, which is in stark contrast to the long-standing patron privacy rights libraries champion on behalf of the public."

DigitalKoans

Justice Department Launches Antitrust Investigation into Google Book Search Settlement

The Justice Department has launched an antitrust investigation into the Google Book Search Copyright Class Action Settlement.

Read more about it at "Justice Department Looking into Google Book Settlement" and "Justice Dept. Opens Antitrust Inquiry Into Google Books Deal."

Foreign Opposition to the Google Book Search Settlement

Foreign opposition to the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement appears to be growing as the rights holder opt-out deadline nears.

Read more about it at "174 Writers, Poets Reject Google Book Search Offer"; "BA Warns Rights Holders over Google"; "Europeans Seem to Know Little About Google Settlement, But Enough Not to Like It"; and "German Authors Outraged at Google Book Search."

Google Asks Permission to Extend Author Opt-Out Deadline by 60 Days

Google has requested permission from the presiding court to extend the deadline for authors to opt out of the Google Book Search Settlement Agreement by 60 days.

Here's an excerpt from "Extending Notice on the Google Book Search Settlement":

It's pretty easy for credit card companies to contact their cardholders—they send bills to them all the time. The world's authors, publishers and their heirs are much more difficult to find. So, as the New York Times recently reported, the plaintiffs hired notice campaign specialists Kinsella Media Group to tell them about this exciting settlement, and Google has devoted millions of dollars to fund this notice campaign. . . .

The settlement is highly detailed, and we want to make sure rightsholders everywhere have enough time to think about it and make sure it's right for them. That's why we've asked the court for permission to extend the opt-out deadline for an extra 60 days.

Read more about it at "Delay Looming For Google Settlement Deadline?" and "Google Seeks More Time in Book Search Case."

Copyright, Content and Class Action Lawsuits: A Debate on the Google Book Search Settlement

In "ALA Participates in ITIF Google Book Settlement Panel at Library of Congress," District Dispatch describes an ITIF meeting on "Copyright, Content and Class Action Lawsuits: A Debate on the Google Book Search Settlement" at the Library of Congress.

Here's an excerpt:

Yesterday, Dr. Alan Inouye, Director of the American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy, participated in a panel called Copyright, Content and Class Action Lawsuits: A Debate on the Google Book Search Settlement. The talk was sponsored by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), and held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Dr. Inouye offered remarks on the proposed Google Book Settlement from the library and public interest perspective. Also contributing to the panel were Dr. Daniel Clancy, Engineering Director for Google Book Search, Allan Adler, VP of Government Affairs for the Association of American Publishers, and Peter Brantley, Director of Access for the Internet Archive. Daniel Castro, Senior Analyst at ITIF, moderated the panel discussion.

A digital video of the debate is available at the meeting web site.

Peter Hirtle on the Impact of the Google Book Settlement on Foreign Copyright Holders

In "Google Book Settlement, Orphan Works, and Foreign Works," Peter Hirtle discusses the impact of the Google Book Settlement on foreign copyright holders.

Here's an excerpt:

The scope of the foreign land grab could be considerable. Some initial estimates suggest that 7 million books could be included in the settlement. Of these it is estimated that 1 million are in the public domain. That would leave 6 million in-copyright but out-of-print books. Early efforts to try to understand the nature of the library collections that were being used to build the Google books database suggested that 50% of the works in the libraries were not in English, so it would be safe to say that at least 3 million of the books in the settlement will be foreign works. (Since Google added many European partners after this study was done, the number is likely to be much higher.) Some of these are going to be orphan works—but many more are going to have easily locatable rights holders that have chosen not to be active participants in the settlement. Their royalties are destined for the pockets of the Registry. I am willing to bet that a goodly percentage of the operating expenses of the Registry will come not from orphan works, but rather from foreign authors who do not understand the need to participate in the settlement.

Historians’ Work Disrupted When Paper of Record Digital Archive Vanishes after Google Purchase

After Google purchased the Paper of Record digital archive, it brought the site down, upsetting historians that relied on the collection of older newspapers. Although the site will be temporarily restored with Google's permission, the incident raises issues about the permanence and reliability of scholarly digital archives.

Read more about it at "Digital Archives That Disappear" and "'Paper of Record' Disappears, Leaving Historians in the Lurch."

Google Labs Releases Google News Timeline and Similar Images

Google Labs has released Google News Timeline and Similar Images.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Image Search is a tool you can use to find just about any kind of image, but it can sometimes be difficult to find the right image if you can't describe it in words. The new Similar Images feature was developed with just this in mind. Using it you can now find images that look like an existing result simply by clicking on a link. Using visual similarity, you don't have to refine the text of your search, instead, you can just click on the link of an image you like. For example, if you search for [jaguar], you can use the "Similar images" link to quickly narrow your search.

“The Google Book Search Settlement: Ends, Means, and the Future of Books”

James Grimmelmann of the New York Law School has self-archived "The Google Book Search Settlement: Ends, Means, and the Future of Books" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

The settlement tackles the orphan works problem, but through the judicial process. Laundering orphan works legislation through a class action lawsuit is both a brilliant response to legislative inaction and a dangerous use of the judicial power. Many of the public interest safeguards that would have been present in the political arena are attenuated in a seemingly private lawsuit; the lack of such safeguards is evident in the terms of the resulting settlement. The solution is to reinsert these missing public interest protections into the settlement.

Pamela Samuelson: “Legally Speaking: The Dead Souls of the Google Booksearch Settlement”

Pamela Samuelson, Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law and Information at the University of California, Berkeley, has posted an eprint of "Legally Speaking: The Dead Souls of the Google Booksearch Settlement" on O'Reilly Radar.

Here's an excerpt:

This column argues that the proposed settlement of this lawsuit is a privately negotiated compulsory license primarily designed to monetize millions of orphan works. It will benefit Google and certain authors and publishers, but it is questionable whether the authors of most books in the corpus (the "dead souls" to which the title refers) would agree that the settling authors and publishers will truly represent their interests when setting terms for access to the Book Search corpus.

(Note: See the Wikipedia entry on Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls.)

“The Google Book Search Settlement: A New Orphan-Works Monopoly?”

Randal C. Picker of the University of Chicago Law School has self-archived "The Google Book Search Settlement: A New Orphan-Works Monopoly?" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

The settlement agreement is exceeding complex but I have focused on three issues that raise antitrust and competition policy concerns. First, the agreement calls for Google to act as agent for rights holders in setting the price of online access to consumers. Google is tasked with developing a pricing algorithm that will maximize revenues for each of those works. Direct competition among rights holders would push prices towards some measure of costs and would not be designed to maximize revenues. As I think that level of direct coordination of prices is unlikely to mimic what would result in competition, I have real doubts about whether the consumer access pricing provision would survive a challenge under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.

Second, and much more centrally to the settlement agreement, the opt out class action will make it possible for Google to include orphan works in its book search service. Orphan works are works as to which the rightsholder can't be identified or found. That means that a firm like Google can't contract with an orphan holder directly to include his or her work in the service and that would result in large numbers of missing works. The opt out mechanism—which shifts the default from copyright's usual out to the class action's in—brings these works into the settlement. . . .

Third, there is a risk that approval by the court of the settlement could cause antitrust immunities to attach to the arrangements created by the settlement agreement. As it is highly unlikely that the fairness hearing will undertake a meaningful antitrust analysis of those arrangements, if the district court approves the settlement, the court should include a clause—call this a no Noerr clause—in the order approving the settlement providing that no antitrust immunities attach from the court's approval.

National Academies Makes Over 9,000 Reports Freely Available on Google Book Search

The National Academies have made over 9,000 Reports freely available on Google Book Search.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The National Academies today announced the completion of the first phase of a partnership with Google to digitize the library's collection of reports from 1863 to 1997, making them available—free, searchable, and in full text—through Google Book Search. The Academies plan to have their entire collection of nearly 11,000 reports digitized by 2011. . . .

Prior to this project, the Academies digitized more than 4,000 books and made them available online through the National Academies Press; most of those can also be found in Google Book Search. However, researchers who needed to gain access to hard copies of older reports, part of a legacy collection in the library, could not always find what they wanted. Many of these reports exist as single copies, and the library feared potential damage or loss of this important collection. These older reports have been digitized and are now accessible through Google. In addition, the "digitizing of these materials will add another dimension to the preservation of our reports," said Harriston. The Academies hope that wider availability of its reports will be of use to scientists in developing countries, who often rely on the Internet to gather information.

Consumer Watchdog Challenges Google Book Search Settlement

Consumer Watchdog has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that challenges the terms of the Google Book Search Copyright Class Action Settlement.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The proposed settlement announced last year creates the nonprofit Book Rights Registry to manage book digital rights issues. Here are the deal’s two most troubling aspects, Consumer Watchdog said:

—A "most favored nation" clause guarantees Google the same terms that any future competitor might be offered. Under the most favored nation clause the registry would be prevented from offering more advantageous terms to, for example, Yahoo! or Microsoft, even if it thought better terms would be necessary to enable either to enter into the digital books business and provide competition to Google. It is inappropriate for the resolution of a class action lawsuit to effectively create an "anti-compete" clause, which precludes smaller competitors from entering a market. Given the dominance of Google over the digital book market, it would no doubt take more advantageous terms to allow another smaller competitor to enter the market.

—The settlement provides a mechanism for Google to deal with "orphan works." Orphan works are works under copyright, but with the rights holders unknown or not found. The danger of using such works is that a rights holder will emerge after the book has been exploited and demand substantial infringement penalties. The proposed settlement protects Google from such potentially damaging exposure, but provides no protection for others. This effectively is a barrier for competitors to enter the digital book business.

The most favored nation provision should be eliminated to remove barriers of entry and the orphan works provision should be extended to cover all who digitize books, Consumer Watchdog said.

Sony’s eBook Store to Offer Over a Half-Million Public Domain Books from Google

Sony's eBook store will offer over a half-million public domain e-books from Google.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

At Sony’s eBook store (ebookstore.sony.com), a button on the front page leads to the books from Google, which people can transfer to their PRS-505 or PRS-700 Reader at no cost. The process is seamless for Reader owners who have an account at the store. Those new to the store will need to set up an account and download Sony’s free eBook Library software. To start, people can access more than a half-million public domain books from Google, boosting the available titles from the eBook Store to more than 600,000. . . .

Books from Google will feature an extensive list of traditional favorites, including "The Awakening," "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court," and "Black Beauty," as well as a number of items that can be more difficult for people to access. For example, literature lovers can find and read The Letters of Jane Austen in addition to "Sense and Sensibility" and "Emma." Also included are a number of titles in French, German, Italian, Spanish and other languages. People can search the full text of the collection, or they can browse by subject, author, or featured titles.

Peter Brantley on Orphan Works and the Google Book Search Settlement

In "The Orphan Monopoly," Peter Brantley, Executive Director for the Digital Library Federation, examines issues related to orphan works and the Google Book Search Copyright Class Action Settlement.

Here's an excerpt:

There is a lot to ponder: This is arguably a massive re-writing of copyright for books without any legislative input; Marybeth Peters (MBP), the U.S. Registrar of Copyrights, observed that the settlement essentially proposes a private agreement for compulsory licensing between a large class of IP holders and world’s largest search engine. The potential scope and policy ramifications are significant. MBP mentioned that there might be treaty implications under international conventions. And despite that, one of the most shocking of her statements was that the Copyright Office has not received a single inquiry from any of the 535 elected representatives of the people of the United States. Not. One.

“Orphan Works Legislation and the Google Settlement”

In "Orphan Works Legislation and the Google Settlement," Paul Courant discusses the possibility of legislation that would extend the treatment of orphan works in the Google Book Search Copyright Class Action Settlement to anyone.

Here's an excerpt:

But there is an obvious solution, one that was endorsed at the Columbia meeting by counsel for the Authors Guild, the AAP, and Google: Congress could pass a law, giving access to the same sort of scheme that Google and the BRR have under the Google Settlement to anyone. And they could pass some other law that makes it possible for people to responsibly use orphaned works, while preserving interests for the missing "parents" should they materialize. Jack Bernard and Susan Kornfield have proposed just such an architecture to "foster" these orphans. Google has also made a proposal that would be a huge improvement.