Google makes change in book-scanning project

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By Paul Biba

From the daily newsletter Shelf-Awareness:

Google has offered another change in its book-scanning project, apparently hoping to satisfy at least some critics of the settlement between it and authors and publishers that is pending.

The company has signed a new agreement with the University of Michigan, whose library is one of the university libraries whose collection has been scanned by Google. Under the agreement, the University has “a degree of oversight over the prices Google” can charge for its digital library, the New York Times said. The University can object to prices Google charges other libraries, and any such disputes would be resolved through arbitration. But only the 21 libraries in the U.S. whose collections have been scanned may make such pricing objections.

In addition, the new agreement “gives the university, and any library that signs a similar agreement, a discount on its subscription proportional to the number of books” it allows to be scanned. As a result, the University of Michigan “will receive Google’s service free for 25 years.”

Corey Williams, associate director of the American Library Association, told the Times that “any library must have the ability to request that the judge review the pricing should a dispute arise.”

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