Report

Late last year, Google, the Author's Guild, the American Association of Publishers, and the individual plaintiffs in the lawsuit over Google's massive book digitization program negotiated several revisions to their original Proposed Settlement Agreement (original agreement). The revisions were designed to address concerns raised by the Department of Justice and other critics who advised the court to reject the original agreement. The deadline to file comments on the new Proposed Amended Settlement Agreement (amended agreement) was January 28, 2010. The Department of Justice filed its comments on Thursday, February 4, 2010. This document describes the second round of comments.

gbs-2nd-round-comments10feb10.pdf

On December 13, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Costco v. Omega in a manner that eliminated none of the uncertainty caused by the lower court's ruling in that case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had ruled that the copyright law's "first sale doctrine" did not apply to copies manufactured abroad. This ruling cast doubt on a library's ability to circulate books and other materials manufactured outside of the United States.

lca-costco-31jan11.pdf

On July 28, 2010, SkyRiver Technology Solutions joined with Innovative Interfaces to file suit in San Francisco federal court against OCLC Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) alleging numerous anticompetitive business practices and antitrust violations. SkyRiver, a bibliographic services company, and Innovative Interfaces, a library automation company, claim that OCLC is "unlawfully monopolizing the bibliographic data, cataloguing service and interlibrary lending markets and is attempting to monopolize the market for integrated library systems by anticompetitive and exclusionary agreements, policies and practices." (p. 1) The outcome of the lawsuit could have significant impact on the library software and technology services industry by opening up OCLC's services, such as WorldCat, to use by commercial competitors. ARL members have asked for a review of the current state of the suit.

skyriver-oclc-antitrust29nov10.pdf

Notes and agenda from a webcast held on December 11, 2002.

patriot-act-patron-privacy.pdf

Until this 1998 survey, no systematic data had been collected on special collections in ARL libraries for nearly 20 years. The results of this survey provide a snapshot of these collections at the end of the twentieth century and identify areas for further investigation.

special-collections-arl-libraries.pdf

This report responds to a recommendation of the 2006 ARL Task Force on the Future of Preservation in ARL Libraries. The task force encouraged ARL to conduct a high-level investigation of the range and balance of preservation activities represented among the ARL membership. The report is a thoughtful and thorough qualitative examination of how research libraries' preservation activities are evolving and expanding in the 21st century. It not only consideres activities traditionally captured by ARL’s Preservation Statistics, but also a host of emerging activities largely, but not exclusively, centered on developing digital collections and involving collaborative efforts.

safeguarding-collections.pdf

google-settlement-13nov08.pdf

The Section 108 Study Group released a Background Paper and requested comments on issues relating to library and archival exceptions under Section 108. The library community provided written and oral statements to the Study Group. Based on the additional input from the library community, the responses in this document provide greater detail and in some instances, clarify the earlier statements filed in conjunction with the March Roundtables and the request for comment by the Study Group.

section108-working-group-2006.pdf

ARL Strategic Directions Steering Committee Topical Briefing, presented at the 147th ARL Membership Meeting, October 2005.

mm-147-lefurgy-rasenberger.pdf

Bamboo is a community-driven cyberinfrastructure initiative that includes faculty and researchers engaged in humanistic inquiry, computer scientists and information scientists interested in innovative models for shared services, and librarians, academic content partners, campus information technologists and other professionals who want to work together across disciplinary, organizational, institutional, and geographical boundaries to better enable and foster innovation in the arts and humanities. Presented at the 152nd ARL Membership Meeting, May 2008.

mm-152-kainz-faulhaber.pdf