[Web4lib] Librarians, administrators, and Google's "library"

[B.G. Sloan]

A couple of people have mentioned Google's plan to offer free access at one workstation in each library.

>From what I read in the Google Books settlement agreement, Google limits free access in this way because it plans to license broader access to the books via subscription. From the agreement: "FTE-based pricing, including pricing bands, may vary across broad categories of institutions." Higher education institutions would then be "sub-divided into sub-categories based on the Carnegie Classifications for Institutions of Higher Education within the United States".

Regarding remote access, it looks like subscriber higher education institutions will be able to offer it. If you look at the various categories of institutions listed in the "subscription" section of the agreement, just about every category (e.g., public library, K-12) has the following statement: "no remote access without Registry approval". The "higher education" category doesn't say this. In fact, Adam Smith of Google said the following a few weeks ago on the Google Public Policy Blog:

"If you’re at a university, in addition to your libraries' free access points, your school can obtain an institutional subscription that gives you access to most books that we've scanned. And scholars and students who don’t keep the same study hours as the library will be able to look at ANY BOOK, ANYWHERE, ANY TIME." (emphasis mine)

Bernie Sloan

I think the reason that Google is limiting free access to one workstation per library is that Google plans to sell institutional subscriptions (see pages 41-48 of the Google Books settlement agreement).

--- On Thu, 9/24/09, Christine Peterson <peterson at amigos.org> wrote:

> From: Christine Peterson <peterson at amigos.org>
> Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Librarians, administrators, and Google's "library"
> To: "Michael" <drweb at san.rr.com>, "Brian Gray" <mindspiral at gmail.com>
> Cc: web4lib at webjunction.org
> Date: Thursday, September 24, 2009, 3:55 PM
> I attended a webinar last week with a
> Google representative discussing the proposal.  When I
> asked if they had considered increasing the amount of access
> for libraries, or looking at using another formula, the
> answer was no -- it seemed to him that one workstation was
> better than none.
>  
> Christine Peterson 
> Continuing Education Librarian 
> Amigos Library Services 
> www.amigos.org <http://www.amigos.org/>  
> peterson at amigos.org
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> on behalf of Michael
> Sent: Thu 9/24/2009 2:47 PM
> To: Brian Gray
> Cc: web4lib at webjunction.org
> Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Librarians, administrators, and
> Google's "library"
> 
> 
> 
> Good one, Brian..
> 
> I might add that the issue I have with the proposed (under
> review) proposal
> is access in libraries is magically somehow slotted as 1
> computer per
> library. That's laughable, of course.
> 
> Like most of our services, maybe they could give them to us
> based on
> population served formula, FTE, or some other criteria.
> 
> I see no good reason we shouldn't be able to serve patrons
> at home/remotely
> for the library "version" of Google Books either; we
> probably could
> authenticate access is "legitimate," just like we do now
> via library card
> and PINs.
> 
> My $.02...
> 
> Best,
> DrWeb
> 
> Michael aka DrWeb
> drweb2 at gmail.com
> Jonathan Swift<http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jonathan_swift.html>
> - "May you live every day of your life."
> 
> On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Brian Gray <mindspiral at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > That question is no different than the variation we
> get know for journals
> > when they say "everything is on the web already" or
> for purchases through
> > our state consortium OhioLINK.
> >
> > Brian Gray
> > mindspiral at gmail.com
> > bcg8 at case.edu
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 12:00 PM, B.G. Sloan <bgsloan2 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I'm interested in seeing what happens once the
> Google "library" is
> > > available via subscription. I can see some
> non-librarian administrators
> > > thinking "Why do we need to spend so much to buy
> library books when we
> > have
> > > millions of them available through Google?"
> > >
> > > Has anyone been thinking about how they might
> answer that question in a
> > way
> > > that makes sense to non-librarian administrators
> higher up on the
> > > administrative food chain?
> > >
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> > Web4lib at webjunction.org
> > http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
> >
> >
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