Google Book Project settlement

Interactive, colorful Google explanation here.

Press release:
Major Universities See Promise in Google Book Search Settlement

ANN ARBOR, Mi; PALO ALTO, Ca, OAKLAND, Ca - The University of California, University of Michigan, and Stanford University announce today their joint support for the outstanding public benefits made possible through the proposed settlement agreement submitted to the United States District Court, Southern District of New York by Google Inc. and plaintiffs the Authors Guild, Inc. et al.

The proposed settlement will expand access to books in the Google Book Search project. Google Book Search is an ambitious project to digitize the print collections of the world’s greatest libraries and make them searchable via the Internet. The project will make it possible for libraries to preserve millions of books and assure numerous other public and academic benefits.

"Millions of books are held in our libraries as a public trust," said Daniel Greenstein, Vice Provost at the University of California. "This settlement will help provide broad access to them as well as other public benefits, and it also promises to promote innovation in scholarship. For these reasons, UC is pleased to have given input along with Universities of Michigan and Stanford in support of the public good, and we look forward to playing a continuing role by contributing UC library volumes to the development of this rich online resource."

The universities were not direct parties to the agreement, and there are some aspects of it the universities would change; however they believe it is favorable overall to the principles and intentions that led them to join the program as early as 2004.

Among the important benefits to higher education are:

• Free full text access at public libraries around the country
• Free preview and ability to either find the book at a local library or through a consumer purchase.
• A first-ever database of both in-copyright and out-of-copyright (public domain) works on which scholars can conduct advanced research (known as the “the research corpus”). For example, a corpus of this sort will allow scholars in the field of comparative linguistics to conduct specialized large scale analysis of language, looking for trends over time and expanding our understanding of language and culture.
• Enabling the sharing of public domain works among scholars, students and institutions. Not only will scholars and students at other universities be able to read these online, but this will make it possible to provide large numbers of texts to individuals wishing to perform research;
• Institutional subscriptions providing access to in-copyright, out-of-print books;
• Working copies of partner libraries' contributed works for searching and web services complementary to Google's.
• Accommodated services for persons with print disabilities – making it possible for persons with print disabilities to view or have text read with the use of reader technology;
• Digital copies of works digitized by Google provided to the partner libraries for long term preservation purposes. This is important because, as university libraries, we are tasked by the public to be repositories of human knowledge and information.