[Web4lib] A Collection Analysis of the 5 Google Print for Libraries participants

[Sandra Bostian]

One thing of interest that I found in a footnote in Peter Hirtle's excellent copyright chart is that for books in the era requiring renewal (through 1963, I believe), only about 7% were renewed. That makes 93% public domain. That's a rather staggering figure. While that doesn't address the later stuff (still the bigger part), it is a rather substantial loophole. I suspect noone's doing the footwork to determine which ones those 7% are, though.

http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm#Footnote_7

Sandy Bostian

>>> Karen Coyle <kcoyle at kcoyle.net> 09/15/05 4:07 PM >>>
Thanks, Bernie -- ask a librarian (or a group of them) and ye shall 
receive, eh? This article shows that the majority of the works in the 
library collects are NOT public domain:

"Approximately half of the print books in the combined Google 5 
collection were published after 1974. Almost three-quarters were 
published after the Second World War. Using the year 1923 as a rough 
break-off point between materials that are out of copyright and 
materials that are in copyright [16 
<http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september05/lavoie/09lavoie.html#16>], more 
than 80 percent of the materials in the Google 5 collections /are still 
in copyright/."

It doesn't (and probably can't) address the orphan works issue, but 
having sat through the West Coast hearings on orphan works it's pretty 
clear that in this country, at least, it is 1) difficult to determine if 
works are orphaned 2) and being orphaned does not mean that they are no 
longer protected by copyright law.

kc

Sloan, Bernie wrote:

>An interesting piece from the September issue of D-Lib Magazine.
>
>The authors analyzed the collections of the "Google 5" libraries using
>WorldCat. 
>
>>From the article:
>
>Questions addressed include: 
>
>* Coverage: What proportion of the system-wide print book collection
>will GPLP potentially cover? What is the degree of holdings overlap
>across the print book collections of the five participating libraries? 
>* Language: What is the distribution of languages associated with the
>print books held by the GPLP libraries? Which languages are predominant?
>
>* Copyright: What proportion of the GPLP libraries' print book holdings
>are out of copyright? 
>* Works: How many distinct works are represented in the holdings of the
>GPLP libraries? How does a focus on works impact coverage and holdings
>overlap? 
>* Convergence: What are the effects on coverage of using a different set
>of five libraries? What are the effects of adding the holdings of
>additional libraries to those of the GPLP libraries, and how do these
>effects vary by library type
>
>Full text at:
>
>http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september05/lavoie/09lavoie.html 
>
>Bernie Sloan
>Senior Information Systems Consultant
>Consortium of Academic & Research Libraries in Illinois
>616 E. Green Street, Suite 213
>Champaign, IL  61820-5752
>
>Phone: (217) 333-4895
>Fax:   (217) 265-0454
>E-mail: bernies at uillinois.edu 
>
>_______________________________________________
>Web4lib mailing list
>Web4lib at webjunction.org 
>http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/ 
>
>
>  
>

-- 
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net 
ph.: 510-540-7596
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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