Google and out of print books

Photo Credits: From the Creative Commons License posted works on Flickr of rjnagle / Robert Nagle

On All Things Considered, they recently discussed Google and their charges to access out-of-print books that they have scanned. For the most part, the books Google digitized came from agreements that Google reached with libraries to scan items from the library collections, including Harvard, where Robert Darnton is the head librarian. That aspect apparently landed on the editing room floor, as I think this piece on ATC makes the library representative sound petulant. If Darnton is upset, it's probably because Google got the access to these books in the first place from libraries. The payment piece came from a lawsuit that Google settled with the publishers and authors of the works in question; works for which there is still an active copyright, but the works themselves are no longer in print.

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MLA citation:

"Librarian Opposes Google's Library Fees." All Things Considered. 21 Feb. 2009. National Public Radio. 23 Feb. 2009 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100969810