Worried about Google’s lack of competition, the American Library Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) urged the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division to monitor the Google Books settlement in a public letter.
While the three groups now believe the settlement–giving Google control of a vast library of scanned books–should be approved, but are wary of future pricing for subscriptions and the composition of the Book Rights Registry board members. Google will wield historic power over a huge digital collection, and the settlement will undoubtedly affect the 21st Century library. You can read the complete complete letter here.
“The likely demand among academic libraries for an institutional subscription is high; faculty and students performing serious research will insist on the ability to search and read the full text of out-of-print books. This means that libraries probably will be among the primary fee-paying users of the services enabled by the settlement. Accordingly, the Division should pay special attention to the perspectives of libraries on the approval and implementation of the settlement.” (Via Publishers Weekly)