LISNews: Librarian News

Cites & Insights 9:4 (March 2009) is now available.

The 30-page issue (PDF as usual, but there's an HTML version of the essay) consists of one essay:
Perspective: The Google Books Search Settlement

As an author with nine out of print books (to which I hold the rights): Great! I might see a couple hundred dollars...eventually. As one who cares about fair use: Boo! Google backed away from a case I thought they could win--and did so in a way that will make it harder for others in a similar situation. As a reader: Great--Google Books Search will continue to grow, and we'll see more than snippess from (some? most?) of five million out-of-print/in-copyright books. (As for "buying" such books, or rather, "permanent" online access to indifferently-scanned pages that can't be downloaded as PDFs and don't appear to have first-sale rights: Eh.) As a library supporter and user: Unclear--extremely unclear.

We won't have final answers for a long time. Meanwhile, this issue reviews some of the summaries and commentaries, throwing in a fair amount of my own commentary.

Barring truly unusual events, the April issue will have more than one essay, and almost certainly more than two. -- Read More