The University of Michigan has announced a collaboration with Booksurge, Amazon’s print on demand service. As a result Booksurge will offer reprints of some 400,000 rare, out-of-print and out-of-copyright books from its library in soft cover editions at prices from $10 to $45.
The books are in more than 200 languages from Acoli to Zulu and include a 1898 book on nursing by Florence Nightingale, "Notes on Nursing: What it is and What it is not." Some of the books are one of kind, meaning they had been available only from the shelves of the University of Michigan.
The move is now possible because of the university's project to digitize its collection in partnership with Google and the as books in the Michigan-Amazon deal are in the public domain, the revenues generated will be split between Booksurge and the University.
The arrangement is a significant addition to BookSurge's inventory and it will be interesting to watch if others follow and whether the arrangements will be exclusive or open. The other question is how Google will respond as the move could be seen as cutting off what many thought was an obvious revenue stream .
Today the deal involves public domain works and as we wrote earlier this week with respect to the dispute between Wikipedia and The National Portrait Gallery in the UK making – he who owns the public domain rendition and digitalises it can now earn from it.
University of Michigan libraries Dean Paul Courant said the arrangement means "books unavailable for a century or more will be able to go back into print, one copy at a time." Albeit at a new price.
Showing posts with label University of Michigan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label University of Michigan. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Google Attempts to Placate Its Library Community
Sometimes you read news and can go straight to the core point and understand it other its like treading through treacle and you have top think hard what they are trying to say. So when the University of Michigan announced an amended deal with Google over its scanning programme we were perplexed on many fronts.
Some would say that Google is now bringing the libaries into the agreement albeit once more by their favoured back door. Others that its Google’s attempts to placate criticism, potential justice department eyes and win over the confused masses still trying to understand the settlement deal. Whichever the driver is we then have the agreement.
Sergey Brin, a Google co-founder and its president of technology is widely reported claiming opposition to the settlement is “pretty short- sighted and contradictory…There was no option prior to this to get these sorts of books online.”
The new agreement, which Google hopes other libraries will endorse, lets the University of Michigan and any of the other 21 US institutions that lend books to Google for scanning object if it thinks the prices Google charges libraries are too high. Any pricing dispute would be resolved through arbitration.
The new agreement also gives the university, and any library that signs a similar agreement, a discount on its subscription proportional to the number of books it contributes to Google’s mass digitization project. To rub the point home, Michigan will receive Google’s service free for 25 years and is hardly ever going to complain about anything. Some may see it as saying ‘I scan your books you get them cheap I don’t you pay my rates and can’t object.’
The new agreement does not cover the issue of orphan works and privacy of readers of Google’s digital library. Importantly it starts to raise the question of whose the library are we
http://www.lib.umich.edu/mdp/Amendment-to-Cooperative-Agreement.pdf
Some would say that Google is now bringing the libaries into the agreement albeit once more by their favoured back door. Others that its Google’s attempts to placate criticism, potential justice department eyes and win over the confused masses still trying to understand the settlement deal. Whichever the driver is we then have the agreement.
Sergey Brin, a Google co-founder and its president of technology is widely reported claiming opposition to the settlement is “pretty short- sighted and contradictory…There was no option prior to this to get these sorts of books online.”
The new agreement, which Google hopes other libraries will endorse, lets the University of Michigan and any of the other 21 US institutions that lend books to Google for scanning object if it thinks the prices Google charges libraries are too high. Any pricing dispute would be resolved through arbitration.
The new agreement also gives the university, and any library that signs a similar agreement, a discount on its subscription proportional to the number of books it contributes to Google’s mass digitization project. To rub the point home, Michigan will receive Google’s service free for 25 years and is hardly ever going to complain about anything. Some may see it as saying ‘I scan your books you get them cheap I don’t you pay my rates and can’t object.’
The new agreement does not cover the issue of orphan works and privacy of readers of Google’s digital library. Importantly it starts to raise the question of whose the library are we
http://www.lib.umich.edu/mdp/Amendment-to-Cooperative-Agreement.pdf
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