Via Resource Shelf, we learn of a report in Library Journal that says Google is close to settling a three-year-old lawsuit with publishers surrounding Google Book Search. Meanwhile, some of Google's university partners have banded together to launch their own book search service, Hathi Trust. In the legal case, five publishers sued to stop Google from scanning the entire content of books that are still under copyright protection. Google has said that only a small portion of the scanned books are made available through Google Book Search, so the program constitutes "fair use." They also say [...]

Related Topics: Google: Book Search | Legal: Copyright | Search Engines: Book Search Engines | Top News

An article in the New York Times today explores the "book search" initiatives at Google and Microsoft and the resistance of some research libraries to participating. The reason cited is that both search providers are asking for exclusivity: "Libraries that agree to work with Google must agree to a set of terms, which include making the material unavailable to other commercial search services." Many research institutions are opting instead to join the Open Content Alliance, which promises public access to the content and information without any restrictions. Yahoo and Microsoft are members of [...]

Related Topics: Google: Book Search | Microsoft: Live Search Books | Search Engines: Book Search Engines

Google, Baidu race to set up online library in China via Reuters reports that Baidu and Google are going at it to be the largest and best book search service in China. Reuters writes that Peking University Library in Beijing, "one of Asia's largest academic libraries," already has a partnership agreement with Baidu. We reported in the past that Google partnered with Cite Publishing Holding Group hoping to bring 3,000 plus books to their new Google China Book Search service. [...]

Related Topics: Google: Book Search | Google: Partnerships | Search Engines: Baidu | Search Engines: Book Search Engines

Freeing Google Books from Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped covers him trying an interesting experiment. Can Google dictate that public domain books that it has scanned and distributed on the web really be subject to restrictions on non-commercial work? First a look at how Google provides these books. Google says that PDF downloads are available for most out of copyright books via Google Book Search. Sadly, I find the instructions on finding these don't match the actual difficulty in doing so. From the instructions: Search for downloadable books by clicking on the “Full view [...]

Related Topics: Google: Book Search | Legal: Copyright | Search Engines: Book Search Engines

Google Book-Scanning Efforts Spark Debate from the Associated Press is an excellent look how the rivalry between Google's library scanning project and that of the Open Content Alliance -- backed by Yahoo and Microsoft -- is getting more heated. Google pretty much comes off as the evil company trying to lock up books for its own commercial goals. I'll try to restore some balance to that. But then again, perhaps the rhetoric is the only thing that will make Google decide it should figure out a way to better assure people that the scanning will be as open source as possible. The OCA, [...]

Related Topics: Google: Book Search | Google: Critics | Legal: Copyright | Search Engines: Book Search Engines