Posts Tagged ‘library’

Georgetown’s Scholarly Communication Committee (of which I am a new member) has put together a great event to discuss the Google Book Settlement. Entitled “Google and the Future of Higher Education,” it will feature UVa Professor Siva Vaidhyanathan, NYU Professor James Grimmelmann and GU Press Director Richard Brown. Vaidhyanathan is a close watcher of Google and the author of an upcoming book called “The Googlization of Everything” and Grimmelmann has written extensively on Google and the Book Search settlement.

The event will be held on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 10 a.m – 11:30 a.m. at Lauinger Library [map], Murray Room, 5th Floor. Please remember to RSVP to wco4 (at) georgetown.edu

The official description follows:

Eighth Scholarly Communication Symposium
Google and the Future of Higher Education

On October 28, 2008, Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers announced the settlement of the litigation concerning the Google Books Project.  Under the project, Google has been scanning millions of books provided by major research libraries and other sources.  For those books not in the public domain, the publishers and authors claimed that Google’s scanning infringed their copyrights.

The settlement presents significant challenges and opportunities for higher education.  It creates a mechanism for Google to pay rights holders for the right to display more of the books’ texts than it currently does under the current program.  Google will then distribute payments to copyright owners.  Google, in turn, will generate revenue through advertising and by selling to users the ability to see full text.

At stake is the clash between seemingly competing missions.  The academy, at its core, creates and disseminates knowledge.  Google’s goal is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible.”  Is the academy surrendering its mission to a private corporation?  Is this a new intellectual enclosure movement?  Our speakers are uniquely situated to shed light on this case and its context for the Georgetown community.

Hope to see you there.