Oct 15, 2008 at 3:56pm ET by Matt McGee

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 [...]

The Politics of Book Search: Some Research Libraries Decline to Offer Books to Microsoft, Google

Oct 22, 2007 at 8:31am ET by Greg Sterling

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 [...]

Baidu & Google Go Head To Head With Chinese Book Search

Mar 8, 2007 at 9:12am ET by Barry Schwartz

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. [...]

Authorama: Testing If Google Can Restrict Public Domain Books It Offers For Download

Jan 10, 2007 at 9:41am ET by Danny Sullivan

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 [...]

Battle For Books: Evil Google Versus The Altruistic Open Content Alliance

Dec 20, 2006 at 11:09am ET by Danny Sullivan

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, [...]

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