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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

Resources

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

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

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