The Department of Justice yesterday advised the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that while it should not accept the class action settlement in The Authors Guild Inc. et al. v. Google Inc. as proposed due to concerns of the United States regarding class action, copyright and antitrust law, the parties should be encouraged to continue their productive discussions to address those concerns. In its statement of interest filed with the court, the Department stated: "Given the parties’ express commitment to ongoing discussions to address concerns already raised and the possibility that such discussions could lead to a settlement agreement that could legally be approved by the Court, the public interest would best be served by direction from the Court encouraging the continuation of those discussions between the parties and, if the Court so chooses, by some direction as to those aspects of the Proposed Settlement that need to be improved. Because a properly structured settlement agreement in this case offers the potential for important societal benefits, the United States does not want the opportunity or momentum to be lost."

In its filing, the Department proposed that the parties consider a number of changes to the agreement that may help address the United States’ concerns, including imposing limitations on the most open-ended provisions for future licensing, eliminating potential conflicts among class members, providing additional protections for unknown rights holders, addressing the concerns of foreign authors and publishers, eliminating the joint-pricing mechanisms among publishers and authors, and, whatever the settlement’s ultimate scope, providing some mechanism by which Google’s competitors can gain comparable access.

The settlement agreement between Google and the authors and publishers aims to resolve copyright infringement claims brought against Google by the Authors Guild and five major publishers in 2005 raised by Google’s efforts to digitally scan books contained in several libraries and make them searchable on the Internet. The District Court’s hearing on the proposed settlement is scheduled to take place on October 7, 2009.
http://www.usdoj.gov

The September ATG is in the mail and we had to cut the following Rumors -- So, here they are on the ATG News Channel instead!

Plus the DEADLINE for the Early Bird Registration to the Charleston Conference is September 26!!! Hurry and register!

In case you haven't seen, some big news at NISO. They have received two new proposed work items. The first is to develop best practices for Physical Delivery of Library Items and the second on formally standardizing the NLM DTD markup for journals. More information on both is at www.niso.org.

I know. I know. Sometimes Standards are boring but not when so many important people are involved! And what helps cooperation and connectivity better? Listen up! Our input is needed. That’s you and you and you over there! Todd Carpenter’s column is about the mandatory e-only deposit proposal by the U.S. Copyright office. The deadline for submitting comments to the Copyright Office has passed but the larger issues surrounding implem=ntation will take some time to work out. See this issue, p.00.

More about NISO and SERU! The Collection Management and Development Section (CMDS) of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) has announced Judy Luther , president of Informed Strategies and Selden Lamoureux , electronic resources librarian at North Carolina State University libraries, as winners of the Coutts Award for Innovation in Electronic Resources Management. The award recognizes significant and innovative contributions to electronic collections management and development practice. The recipients each receive a $1,000 award generously donated by Coutts Information Services and a citation. Judy Luther and Selden Lamoureux were instrumental in developing SERU: A Shared Electronic Resource Understanding, currently a recommended practice of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO). They brought together librarians, publishers and subscription agents to address the labor-intensive process of negotiating licenses for electronic resources, a process that has increasingly overwhelmed both libraries and publishers. SERU offers a congenial and painless method for achieving a mutual understanding between publishers and libraries. With the potential for drastically reducing the amount of time and money it takes to bring resources to users, SERU is a significant step forward in the electronic resource acquisition process. Libraries and publishers can sign on to the SERU registry, which now includes more than 70 libraries and more than 25 publishers.

Another NISO initiative. NISO and OCLC announce the publication of a white paper on Streamlining Book Metadata Workflow, written by consultant Judy Luther (President, Informed Strategies), that analyzes the current state of metadata creation, exchange, and use throughout the book supply chain. With the number of book formats multiplying and the amount of digital content growing rapidly, the metadata required to support the discovery, sale, and use of content by a global audience is increasing exponentially. Through interviews with over 30 industry representatives, Luther has created a book metadata exchange map illustrating the workflow and metadata exchange and has identified opportunities for eliminating redundancies and making the entire process more economical. The white paper was commissioned by NISO and OCLC as a follow-up to the Symposium for Publishers and Librarians held by OCLC on March 18-19, 2009 to discuss book metadata. Both organizations share the vision of an environment where data can be exchanged seamlessly between different systems and both are focused on reducing the costs of this exchange for all participants in the supply chain of data and content. NISO and OCLC plan to hold ongoing events to continue the dialog among publishers, librarians, and metadata suppliers. Streamlining Book Metadata Workflow is available on the NISO Website.
www.niso.org/publications/white_papers/
www.oclc.org/publisher-symposium/

Good article worth reading in the Chronicle of Higher Education (September 10, 2009) by Jennifer Howard – “Choosing up Sides to Hate or Love the Google Books Deal.” All kinds of groups are now opposing the Google Books Settlement in the US and abroad. On the other hand there are many groups who want the Settlement to go through. But it’s now in the lap (or is it hands?) I guess it’s the court of federal judge Denny Chin (who by the way presided over Bernie Madoff’s trial). Says Howard: “how will Judge Chin decide what role the federal courts can and should play in the creation and oversight of what almost everyone agrees will be a digital library the likes of which we have never seen before.” Good question. And also worth reading -- Bob Holley’s OpEd (re, guess what, the Google Book Settlement) in the uncoming issue of ATG (September 2009) to be mailed to subscribers next week! http://chronicle.com/article/Choosing-Up-Sides-in-the/48357/ (password reqd)

All of us are familiar with the eBook market and have had numerous (or should I say countless) offers for these items thrown at us! Well – here’s another discussion of eBooks – the eTextbook. This recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Wednesday, September 2, 2009) by Jeffrey R. Young (“This Could be the Year of e-Textbooks, If Students Accept them.” http://chronicle.com/article/The-Year-of-e-Textbooks-/48305/ includes comments from several faculty and end users at Arizona State University who began an experiment last month to teach class using the Amazon Kindle eBook reader. The Amazon experiment includes seven other institutions but I have been unable to locate the names of the other institutions. If you know, please let us know!

Another article on eBooks and the Kindle was recently in The New Yorker (August 3, 2009) by Nicholson Baker. “A New Page: Can Kindle really improve on the book?” Baker is not overly complimentary of the Kindle interestingly enough. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/8/03/0908003fa_fact_bak...

More about eBooks and eReaders, Saw that the Sony eBook reader was featured at a recent event at the New York Public Library. Sony is reportedly committing to an open eBook standard enabling readers to download from a variety of locations on a variety of devices. See “Sony E-book Reader to Challenge Amazon Kindle.”
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2009/aug/26/sony-e-book-reader-to-cha...

And – guess what I just got in the mail? A PRINT BOOK!!!! It’s by Robert Darnton (Director, Harvard University Library) and the man who helped invent the discipline of the History of the Book.Darnton's book will be published October 2009 by PublicAffairs and is called The Case for Books, Past, Present, and Future. ISBN 978-1-58648-826-0. The book assembles the writings Darnton has done on this subject from a range of publications including the New York Review of Books where he is a regular contributor. I can’t wait to dig into this book!

Just learned that the awesomely energetic Bev Acreman will join BioMed Central as Commercial Director! As we all remember, Bev comes to BioMed Central from Taylor & Francis, where for 14 years! she has played a significant role in growing the company to its present position as a major player in STM publishing. With the proven success of the open access publishing model, BioMed Central is experiencing rapid growth in manuscript submissions, has many exciting new products in development, and sees many opportunities for exciting partnerships and relationships with academic institutions, libraries, and societies. In her new role, Bev’s extensive previous involvement with learned society journal publishing will be a major asset as BioMed Central continues to develop its own rapidly expanding society publishing program. Speaking of her appointment Beverley said "I’m tremendously excited to be joining BioMed Central and am passionate about driving the business forward. I am looking forward to working with authors, institutions and societies alike to help them realize the huge potential of open access".
Congratulations, Bev!!!
http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/presscenter/pressreleases?pr=20090908

Katina here. I have been out of pocket for the past few months. First, went to the 11th Fiesole Retreat in Glasgow. A wonderful event! Be sure and visit the website to see several of the papers that were delivered there as well as at previous Fiesole Retreats. http://digital.casalini.it/retreat/
Second, I took a week's vacation in Scotland with my husband Bruce.

Then I spent time in the hospital with Bruce who was having hip replacement surgery. I also stayed home with him to help him for several weeks after he came home. I learned a lot about being a nurse, sort of. Bruce is doing very well now but I am very behind! If you have tried to contact me, please try again. I am around, just digging through scores of back emails!

Apparently there is a major marketing scheme afoot to bring back the Beatles in a big way and 09/09/09 is the special day for that purpose. In yesterday’s Sunday newspaper advertisement inserts, all the big box stores were heralding a new video game, “The Beatles Rock Band.”

UPDATE ON THE NEW ACQWEB – CHECK IT OUT AT: www.acqweb.org

Dear colleagues across the spectrum of Library land and beyond:

It’s finally time to announce that a new AcqWeb has finally been planted and the seed is rapidly growing.

In no particular order:

I have a fantastic crop of basil here in Greenville. If I were in Boone now any basil I would have attempted to grow would be stunted and possibly mildewed. It has been a cool, wet summer in the mountains. Of course, on the days here when it's been 103 I really did miss Boone.

My last blog entry was probably the craziest thing I ever posted online and after reading it to my best friend Marcie (who does not do computers, not to mention Facebook) she told me to pull it. I'm not deleting it but I did edit it. I don't do that very often because it feels like cheating. I didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings or sound like a jaded old woman - but I think that's exactly what it conveyed.

I need to take my own advice and relax.