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The American Library Association’s (ALA) Washington Office will host a panel discussion on the proposed Google Book Search (GBS) settlement during the association’s annual conference in Washington.

The session, titled “Panel Discussion on Life after the Google Book Search (GBS) Settlement,” will be held from 10:30 a.m. to noon on Saturday, June 26, in Washington Convention Center, Room 151B.

A panel of speakers, mediated by Jonathan Band, intellectual property attorney and counsel for the ALA, will discuss what the outcome of the proposed GBS settlement will mean for the future of libraries and digitization efforts.

Panelists include the following: James Grimmelmann, Professor, New York University Law School; Marybeth Peters, Register of Copyrights, U.S. Copyright Office; Mark Sandler, Director, Center for Library Initiatives, Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC); and Johanna Shelton, Senior Policy Council, Google.

Prudence S. Adler
ARL Associate Executive Director

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) today submitted a supplemental filing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York overseeing the proposed Google Book Search settlement to address developments that have occurred since the groups submitted their filing on May 4.

While the library associations’ position has not changed since their initial filing, the groups believe that recent activity, such as an amended agreement reached between Google and the University of Michigan, the University of Texas-Austin and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Google’s recent public statement regarding privacy, and the library associations’ communication with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) should be brought to the court’s attention.  In their supplemental filing, the library associations call upon the court to address concerns with pricing review, to direct Google to provide more detail on privacy issues, and to broaden representation on the Books Rights Registry.

Both of the filings emphasize that vigorous oversight by the court is needed to ensure the proposed settlement reached among Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers does not erode core library values, such as equity of access to information, patron privacy and intellectual freedom.

Supplemental Library Association Comments on the Proposed Settlement

For Immediate Release

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) sent a letter to William Cavanaugh, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division yesterday, requesting the Division to advise the court presiding over the Google Book Settlement to supervise the implementation of the settlement closely, particularly the pricing of institutional subscriptions and the selection of the Book Rights Registry board members.

The letter, which was sent following a meeting the library groups had with the Antitrust Division, also recommended that the Division itself actively monitor the parties’ compliance with the settlement’s provisions.

In particular, the library groups urged the Division to ask the court to review pricing of institutional subscriptions whenever the Division concludes that the prices do not meet the economic objectives set forth in the settlement. In order to evaluate the price of an institutional subscription, the groups believe the Division should have access to all relevant price information from Google and the Registry.

The library associations assert that the Division should ask the court to review any refusal by the Registry to license copyrights in books on the same terms available to Google and to also review the selection process for the Registry Board to ensure the interests of all rightsholders are considered.

With an absence of competition for the proposed services, the settlement could compromise fundamental library values such as equity of access to information, patron privacy and intellectual freedom, according to the library associations who filed comments with the presiding judge on behalf of libraries and the public interest.

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Contacts: Jenni Terry, Press Officer, ALA Washington Office
(202) 628-8410, jterry@alawash.org

Prue Adler, ARL Associate Executive Director
(202) 296-2296, prue@arl.org

July 29, 2009 letter to DOJ

Representatives from Google and the library community will participate in a panel discussion moderated by Nancy Kranich, chair of the Committee on Legislation’s Copyright Subcommittee, to discuss the recent settlement and essentially what’s in it for libraries.

Panel participants include:

• Dan Clancy, Google
• Crosby Kemper III, CEO, Kansas City Public Library system
• Nancy Kranich, Chair, ALA Committee on Legislation Copyright Subcommittee
• Lee Van Orsdel, Dean of University Libraries, Grand Valley State University
• Kevin Smith, Scholarly Communications Officer, Duke University
• Patricia Steele, Dean of University Libraries, Indiana University

The program will include an overview of the proposed settlement recently reached among Google, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild and the comments filed on behalf of the ALA, the Association of Academic and Research Libraries and the Association of Research Libraries with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for the judge to consider in his ruling on the proposed settlement. The panelists will offer brief remarks and then take questions from the audience.

Additional information about the proposed Google Book Search settlement agreement, including the recent amended agreement between Google and the University of Michigan, is available at http://wo.ala.org/gbs/.

CONTACTS:
Jenni Terry, press officer, ALA Washington Office; (202) 628-8410; jterry@alawash.org
Prudence S. Adler, associate executive director, ARL; (202) 296-2296; prue@arl.org

WASHINGTON, DC – The American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) today filed comments with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for the judge to consider in his ruling on the proposed Google Book Search Settlement.  The associations asked the judge to exercise vigorous oversight of the interpretation and implementation of the settlement to ensure the broadest possible benefit from the services the settlement enables.

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.

Under the settlement, Google, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild resolved their legal dispute over the scanning of millions of books provided by research libraries.  The library associations are not asking the judge to reject the settlement.  Instead, they are requesting the judge to carefully monitor the parties’ behavior once the settlement takes effect.

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.”

Although the filing deadline for comments to the judge was recently extended by four months, the associations moved forward with filing by the original deadline to help inform the public as it considers this important and complex matter.

“The filing before the court by the library associations demonstrates that the associations will be vigilant in highlighting the interests of the public in this settlement.  We have asked the court to exercise vigorous oversight to ensure that the powerful groups that control content do not leave individual researchers, libraries, other cultural organizations and the public without an effective voice,” Tom Leonard, president of ARL, said.

Library Association Comments on the Proposed Settlement