Who Can Say No to Google? Harvard, That’s Who

Posted on October 31, 2008
Filed Under News, The Daily Prereq | By Jessica Dye

Google just inked a $125 million settlement with authors and book publishers, securing the right to scan copyrighted, out-of-print books from five of the biggest libraries in the country for their digital Google Book service. Awesome, right? No thanks, says Harvard, whose library has been a prime source of out-of-copyright books already scanned into the Google Book database.

They’re hesitant to join into Google’s latest phase, according to the Harvard Crimson, because Google plans on charging libraries a subscription fee to access the copyright-protected books. Harvard library officials are worried that Google’s business model for the books will limit use in higher ed and public libraries, rather than expand it. Plus, why pay for students to access books on Google that you’ve got sitting on your shelves? Hopefully Harvard will take a role in negotiating service terms that help everyone out, rather than sitting on its stacks. After all, while Google may have the high-tech glitz, Harvard’s been at this book thing for about 300 years.

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