Presidential Task Force for Equitable Access to Electronic Content - March 28, 2011

Presidential Task Force for Equitable Access to Electronic Content (EQUACC) establishes blog and forum

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Library Association (ALA) Presidential Task Force for Equitable Access to Electronic Content (EQUACC) has established a blog and forum to invite commentary on the work of the Task Force and to discuss more generally libraries’ role in providing free and confidential access to e-content for the public.

The Task Force has divided its work into five categories:

• Accessibility – issues, trends, education on providing accessible content to people with disabilities
• Public Relations – building more support and awareness that libraries play an essential role in the e-content world
• Model Projects – case studies of libraries trying different models for providing accessible content
• Environmental Scan – the need to better understand the existing market and future trends that libraries should be aware of
• Licensing – exploring new and emerging business models for obtaining content from authors, publishers, and vendors

“I hope that ALA members will take advantage of this opportunity to make their voices heard about these issues that are of importance to libraries in the U.S. and throughout the world,” ALA President Roberta Stevens said.

The Task Force welcomes all to initiate discussion, ask questions, and provide feedback in the web site forums where each issue is highlighted.

Google Book Settlement at the Crossroads: What Now, What Next?

GBS at the Crossroads: What Now, What Next?
Ivy Anderson, California Digital Library - March 26, 2011

http://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2011/03/26/gbs-at-the-crossroads-what-now-what-next/

Nature Publishing Index: Global Top 50 (BETA)

Nature Publishing Top 50 - March 24, 2011

http://www.natureasia.com/en/publishing-index/global/

These rankings are based on the number of papers that were published in 2010 from the institutions listed below. These rankings only include primary research papers that were published as "Articles & Letters" in Nature and/or Nature monthly research journals.

UCSD, UCSF, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSB, UCD are on the list.

See Footnote #2:

For some organizations such as CNRS, the Max Planck Institutes and the Chinese Academy Sciences that include numerous research entities we have aggregated results. On the other hand, we have, for example, chosen not to group the 10 universities of the University of California System and have presented each of them as distinct research entities. But, if they were grouped, the System would rank number one with an aggregate corrected count of well over 100 papers.

Google Boook settlement denied - March 22, 2011

Judge Chin has denied the settlement agreement in the Google Book Search case. From the opinion:

"In the end, I conclude that the ASA is not fair, adequate, and reasonable. As the United States and other objectors have noted, may of the concerns raised in the objections would be ameliorated if the ASA were converted from an "opt-out" settlement to an "opt-in" settlement. I urge the parties to consider revising the ASA accordingly. The motion for final approval of the ASA is denied, without prejudice to renewal in the event the parties negotiate a revised settlement agreement."

The complete opinion may be found here:

The Authors Guild et al. vs. Google Inc. (05 CIV 8136) - March 22, 2011
United States District Court - Southern District of New York
http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/cases.php

The UC libraries have issued a statement on the March 22, 2011 federal court decision regarding the proposed Google Books Amended Settlement Agreement. The statement is available on UC’s Reshaping Scholarly Communication website: http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/google/settlement_decision.html

HathiTrust’s response is available at http://www.hathitrust.org/hathitrust_asa_response