Association of Research Libraries

The author discusses th October 28, 2008, Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers settlement of the litigation concerning the Google Library Project http://books.google.com/booksrightsholders/agreementcontents.html. Under the project, Google has been scanning into its search database millions of books provided by major research libraries and other sources. For those books not in the public domain, the publishers and authors claimed that Google's
scanning infringed their copyrights. The settlement still requires the approval of the presiding judge in the US district court in New York because the case was brought as a class action on behalf of all affected rightsholders.

A study of publishing services offered by ARL member libraries that provides valuable context for librarians and campus leaders considering the opportunities offered by this rapidly emerging research library role.

This report examines the issues associated with moves toward electronic-only publication of journals. It is based in large part on interviews with two-dozen academic librarians and journal publishers. Interviews were conducted with collection officers and others at a dozen ARL member libraries; the rest of the interviews were with publishing staff of societies and university presses, publishing platform hosts, and publishing production consultants.

Three recent appellate decisions concerning fair use should give educators and librarians greater confidence and guidance for asserting this important privilege. In all three decisions, the courts permitted extensive copying and display in the commercial context because the uses involved repurposing and recontextualization. The reasoning of these opinions could have far-reaching implications in the educational environment.