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Alternative Approaches to Open Digital Libraries in the Shadow of the Google Book Search Settlement

An Open Workshop at Harvard Law School

July 31, 2009

Sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the Harvard Law School Library, and Professors Charles Nesson, John Palfrey and Phil Malone

Scope and Goals

The proposed Google Book Search settlement creates the opportunity for unprecedented access by the public, scholars, libraries and others to a digital library containing millions of books assembled by major research libraries. But the settlement is controversial, in large part because this access is limited in major ways: instead of being truly open, this new digital library will be controlled by a single company, Google, and a newly created Book Rights Registry consisting of representatives of authors and publishers; it will include millions of so-called “orphan works” that cannot legally be included in any competing digitization and access effort, and it will be available to readers only in the United States. It need not have been this way.

This workshop seeks to bring a fresh, unique perspective to a complex and widely debated topic. It will focus not on the specific merits and demerits of the settlement itself, or the particular antitrust and privacy and other objections that have been raised. Instead, it will examine the idea of possible alternative universes and offer specific proposals for scenarios that may arise whether or not the settlement is approved. What can libraries, or universities, or non-profits, or Congress, do in the current landscape? And how might these possibilities help us to define a better world than the one that we have today and, more importantly, than the one that will exist if the Google settlement is approved in its current form? Regardless of what happens with respect to the Settlement, what alternative possibilities could lead to a richer, more open and better information ecosystem than the one we have today or might have tomorrow with the Settlement?

By exploring these alternatives, this workshop seeks, in the end, to help inform the debate over the Settlement and its terms and to illuminate some of the key policy considerations that are at stake. Its ultimate goal is to develop a series of options and proposals that could improve on the status quo in novel ways.

Proposed Topics

Here are some tentative topics for beginning discussion at the workshop. We welcome feedback on these suggestions and encourage you to contribute your own proposals. We'll choose several of the topics to be incorporated into our agenda. (To edit this wiki, you must register for an account via the link in the upper right hand corner of this page). For suggestions, please be sure to include your name and email address on the page so that others may contact you with similar ideas/further questions/suggestions. The deadline to submit a proposal is Wednesday, 7/22 at 3 PM ET.

1. What might truly open access to orphan works look like
2. What might a truly “open” digital collection created by major libraries look like
3. What might a truly “open” global library look like
4. What would a truly “open” digital library look like
5. What might truly open access to and use of an online digital library look like
6. What might online, digital publishing and access look like going forward
7. Are all of these the same? Within the open environment what is closed?
8. Intellectual Freedom = Unrestricted Access to Information + No Monitoring of Use (MarcEPIC)
9. Payment of processing (author) fees to publishers of journals and monographs
10. How could the proposed Google Books settlement change the landscape for alternative projects like the Internet Archive? How should such projects adapt so as to remain a viable alternative?

Post-deadline Submissions

1. How can we ensure that digital libraries maintain the same privacy protections that non-digital libraries have worked hard to build and preserve?

Resources

Please add links to papers, articles, blogposts, and other items related to GBS and of interest to workshop participants to this page.

• http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/googlebooks/Resources
• The EFF's page on the Google Book Search Settlement and Reader Privacy

Proposed Agenda

TBA based on proposals and feedback listed above. The workshop will take place starting at 8 or 9AM, lasting until 4 or 5PM.

Registration and Participants

Registration is now full, but you can email ashar@cyber.law.harvard.edu to be alerted about any open seats that do open up.

If you wish for your name to be listed on the wiki in this section, please indicate your preference on the registration form. Registration to this event is free.

1. John Palfrey, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
2. Phil Malone, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
3. Charles Nesson, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
4. Jennifer Gordon, Harvard Law School Library
5. Michelle Pearse, Harvard Law School Library
6. Mary Daniels, Francis Loeb Library / GSD
7. Joey Mornin, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
8. Chris Peterson, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
9. Lewis Hyde, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
10. Harry Lewis, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
11. David Weinberger, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
12. Amar Ashar, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
13. Siva Vaidhyanathan, http://www.googlizationofeverything.com/, University of Virginia
14. Ines Zalduendo, Frances Loeb Library / Graduate School of Design
15. Bill Comstock, Harvard College Library
16. Mansooreh Saboori, Harvard Law School Library
17. Dave Davis, Copyright Clearance Center
18. Bethaney Henshaw, Millipore
19. Abby Clowbridge, Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government Library
20. Michael Hemment, Harvard College Library
21. Constance Rinaldo, Ernst Mayr Library/MCZ/Harvard
22. Martha Creedon, Harvard University Library Office for Information Systems
23. James Grimmelmann New York Law School
24. Sue Kriegsman, Harvard College Library
25. Dee Magnoni Olin College of Engineering
26. Wendy Seltzer, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
27. Hope Tillman, http://www.hopetillman.com
28. Walt Howe, Tillman & Howe
29. Alexa McCray, Harvard Medical School
30. Eric Saltzman, Creative Commons
31. Judy Warnement, Botany Libraries/Harvard University Herbaria
32. Virginia Mcvarish, Harvard College Library
33. Noelle Ryan, Harvard University Library
34. Patrick Tracy, Western New England College School of Law Library
35. Michael Burstein, Harvard Law School
36. Eugene Curry
37. Douglas Newcomb, Special Libraries Association
38. Carolina Rossini, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
39. Robert Darnton, Harvard University Library
40. Marc Rotenberg, EPIC
41. Marguerite Avery, MIT Press
42. Meg Kribble, Harvard Law School Library
43. Deborah Jackson Weiss, Harvard Law School Library
44. Thomas Ma, Countway Library/Harvard Medical School
45. Lorraine Lezama, Clarendon Group
46. Beardsley Ruml, Consultant
47. Monica Schieck, ECO/UFRJ
48. Dr. Zulfiquar Ahmed, department of law and justice, university of RAJSHAHI
49. Barbara Preece, Boston Library Consortium
50. Rosanna Kowalewski, UMass Lowell
51. Eric Hellman, Gluejar, Inc
52. Hillary Corbett, Northeastern University Libraries
53. Liza Daly, Threepress.org
54. Corinna Baksik, Harvard University Library
55. Maura Marx, Open Knowledge Commons
56. Amy Lewontin, Northeastern University Snell Library
57. Michael Fisher, Harvard University Press/Editorial Director
58. Charles McEnerney, Well-Rounded Radio + ArtsBoston
59. Karen Nipps, Houghton Library, HCL
60. Tom Demay, Kirtas Technologies
61. Kuniko McVey, Harvard-Yenching library
62. Leora Kornfield, Harvard Business School
63. Randy Stern, Harvard University Library
64. Nancy Leon, Suffolk University Law School
65. Ozkan Kaya
66. Mahat Somane, Harvard Kennedy School
67. Nancy George, Salem State College
68. Jennifer Casasanto, Harvard SEAS
69. Rebecca Tabasky, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
70. John Deighton, Harvard Business School
71. Mitchell Reich, Harvard Law School/Student
72. Adam Holland, Berkman Center / BU School of Law
73. Sam Bayard, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
74. Antwuan Wallace, New School University
75. Rebecca Yadegar
76. Andrew Fong
77. Sarah Cortes, InmanTechnologyITcom
78. Karrie Peterson, Brandeis University
79. Mary Murrell, University of California, Berkeley
80. Rebecca Curtin, Harvard University, Department of English
81. Ellen Duranceau, MIT Libraries
82. Timothy Vollmer, American Library Association Office for Information Technology Policy
83. Zach Newell, Salem State College
84. Bill Nehring, MLIS Student - Simmons College
85. Peter Suber, Berkman Center
86. Leslie Morris, Houghton Library, Harvard University
87. MacKenzie Smith, MIT Libraries
88. Megan Sniffin-Marinoff, Harvard University Archives

Location, Directions, and other Logistical Information

• Location: Harvard Law School, Pound Hall Room 102 (Map: http://map.harvard.edu/level3.cfm?mapname=camb_allston&tile=F6&quadrant=C&series=N)
• Driving Directions
• Subway Directions
• Bus Directions
• Wireless internet access will be available at the workshop
• Parking is not available through Harvard Law School, but there are several parking garages in Harvard Square
• Remote participation channels (Registration is not required for remote participation).
  • Follow the Berkman Center on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/berkmancenter, use the hashtag #gbsworkshop09
  • Join the IRC: irc://irc.freenode.net/berkman (requires an IRC Client such as Chatzilla)
  • Plenary sessions for this event will be webcast live at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/webcast
• Questions? Contact Amar Ashar at ashar@cyber.law.harvard.edu.