November 2008 Archives
Last month Google announced that it had settled the lawsuits brought by the Author’s Guild and the Association of American Publishers over its book-scanning project. A U.S. District Judge has given preliminary approval of the settlement which is now scheduled for a hearing next June.
The lawsuits claimed that Google’s mass digitization of works in major U.S. research libraries infringed upon the copyrights of authors and publishers. Terms of the settlement include payment of $125-million by Google to set up a Books Rights Registry, pay authors and publishers for scanning of any copyrighted work, and provide for legal costs. The settlement would apply to works registered with the U.S. Copyright Office and scanned by Google before January 5, 2009. Google plans to continue scanning books in the public domain and copyrighted out-of-print books. The Registry will be run by representatives of authors and publishers and will make payments to rightsholders.
The deal also provides rules regarding how much of the full-text Google can allow users to see. Users at U.S. public and university libraries will be able to freely search and preview portions of works online. In many cases, individual users will be able to purchase online full-text access. Institutions will be offered a subscription service to allow their users access to the complete text. Details regarding the prices for these services are not yet available.
The 200+ page settlement is complex and generating reaction and comments from copyright experts, librarians, publishers and scholarly groups. But, if approved, the deal could potentially make many more out-of-print works available to U.S. readers while benefiting the rightsholders through compensation.
Related Links:
Complete Settlement with Attachments
Joint Public FAQ
Chronicle of Higher Education Article, 10/29/2008
A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement
Peter Suber’s Open Access News
Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences
Special Collections and Archives Reading Room
509 North 12th Street
Richmond, VA 23298-0582
804-828-0636
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
VCU Libraries will celebrate the contributions that MCV Campus authors have made to the scholarly literature. This event is free and open to the public.
Parking is available for a fee in the Patient/Visitor parking deck. To RSVP, or to request special accommodations, please call (804) 828-4640 or e-mail Sarah Amick by December 8, 2008.
This event is sponsored by the VCU Friends of the Library.
From an ARL press release:
Current Models of Digital Scholarly Communication
ARL Releases Final Report from Ithaka Study
Washington DC--The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has released the final report from a study that ARL commissioned Ithaka to conduct, Current Models of Digital Scholarly Communication, by Nancy L. Maron and K. Kirby Smith, along with the database of exemplars that the study produced.
In the spring of 2008, ARL engaged Ithaka's Strategic Services Group to conduct an investigation into the range of online resources valued by scholars, paying special attention to those projects that are pushing beyond the boundaries of traditional formats and are considered innovative by the faculty who use them. The networked digital environment has enabled the creation of many new kinds of works, and many of these resources have become essential tools for scholars conducting research, building scholarly networks, and disseminating their ideas and work, but the decentralized distribution of these new-model works has made it difficult to fully appreciate their scope and number.
Ithaka's findings are based on a collection of resources identified by a volunteer field team of over 300 librarians at 46 academic institutions in the US and Canada. Field librarians talked with faculty members on their campuses about the digital scholarly resources they find most useful and reported the works they identified. The authors evaluated each resource gathered by the field team and conducted interviews of project leaders of 11 representative resources. Ultimately, 206 unique digital resources spanning eight formats were identified that met the study's criteria.
The study's innovative qualitative approach yielded a rich cross-section of today's state of the art in digital scholarly resources. The report profiles each of the eight genres of resources, including discussion of how and why the faculty members reported using the resources for their work, how content is selected for the site, and what financial sustainability strategies the resources are employing. Each section draws from the in-depth interviews to provide illustrative anecdotes and representative examples.
Highlights from the study's findings include:
* While some disciplines seem to lend themselves to certain formats of digital resource more than others, examples of innovative resources can be found across the humanities, social sciences, and scientific/technical/medical subject areas.
* Of all the resources suggested by faculty, almost every one that contained an original scholarly work operates under some form of peer review or editorial oversight.
* Some of the resources with greatest impact are those that have been around a long while.
* While some resources serve very large audiences, many digital publications--capable of running on relatively small budgets--are tailored to small, niche audiences.
* Innovations relating to multimedia content and Web 2.0 functionality appear in some cases to blur the lines between resource types.
* Projects of all sizes--especially open-access sites and publications--employ a range of support strategies in the search for financial sustainability.
The report is freely available on the ARL Web site at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/current-models-report.pdf.
Library Lite All Nite
24/5 Hours
November 30 - December 16, 2008
James Branch Cabell Library
The James Branch Cabell Library on the Monroe Park Campus will be open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week during exams. This expanded service is called Library Lite All Nite.
From Sunday, November 30 through Tuesday, December 16, Cabell doors will open at 11:00 a.m. each Sunday and remain open until our regular Friday evening closing time at 9pm. Saturday hours will remain unchanged during Library Lite All Nite - 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
This service will provide 24/5 access to the library building and offer Circulation and Information services, individual study on the 3rd and 4th floors, group study in designated areas, and computerized resources including the library catalog, databases, Internet access, and Microsoft Office applications. The B-8 Computer Lab will also be open during the 24/5 hours.
Sunday through Thursday nights, all patrons entering James Branch Cabell Library after 10 p.m. are required to show VCUCards to gain admittance. A complete listing of operational hours for Cabell Library and Tompkins-McCaw Library is available online.
For more information about Library Lite All Nite and for a complete listing of available services, please visit this Web site.
Author's Rights, Tout de Suite, the latest Digital
Scholarship publication, is designed to give journal article
authors a quick introduction to key aspects of author's
rights and to foster further exploration of this topic
though liberal use of relevant references to online
documents and links to pertinent Web sites.
http://www.digital-scholarship.org/ts/authorrights.pdf
It is under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0
United States License, and it can be freely used for any
noncommercial purpose, including derivative works, in
accordance with the license.
VCU Cabell First Novelist Festival
November 14, 2008, 7:00 p.m.
University Student Commons, Richmond Salons
907 Floyd Avenue, Richmond, VA
Directions
VCU welcomes 2008 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award winner Travis Holland, his agent, Amy Williams, and his editor, Dial Press Vice President Susan Kamil, as they trace the journey of Holland’s masterful “The Archivist’s Story” from first draft to literary sensation.
The reading and book discussion are free and open to the public, as well as the book signing and reception immediately following. Parking is available for a fee in the West Main Street and West Cary Street parking decks. If special accommodations are needed, please call Sarah Amick at (804) 828-4640 prior to Nov. 12, 2008.
The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, presented by the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, is sponsored by the VCU Department of English, James Branch Cabell Library Associates, VCU Friends of the Library, VCU Libraries, VCU Honors College and the VCU College of Humanities and Sciences.
Overcoming Life's Challenges and Championing Diversity
November 6, 2008 5:00 pm
Hermes A. Kontos Medical Sciences Building Auditorium,
1217 E. Marshall St., Richmond, VA
Dr. Claudia Thomas will present "Overcoming Life's Challenges and Championing Diversity," on Thursday, November 6, 2008 at 5:00 pm in the Hermes A. Kontos Medical Sciences Building Auditorium. Dr. Thomas was the first African-American female orthopaedic surgeon in the United States, the 2008 recipient of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Diversity Award, and is the author of God Spare Life.
A reception and book signing will follow the lecture. This event is free and open to the public. To R.S.V.P. or request special accommodations, call (804) 828-4640 or email Sarah Amick at seamick@vcu.edu. Directions and Parking
This event is sponsored by the VCU Friends of the Library and the MCV Campus Programs, University Student Commons & Activities. More information about other Friends of the Library events is available on the Special Events page.
