Google’s book people talk to librarians at Midwinter

Library Journal has a thorough article reporting on the panel on the Google Books settlement that happened at Midwinter.

Mitch Freedman, past president of ALA, wondered about changes to the “free to all” ideology of libraries, asking whether Google would permit, as do other databases, site licenses for public libraries. [Google’s Dan] Clancy said that, given the consumer market, there was no agreement on remote access, but that could change down the road. “Authors and publishers were not comfortable with remote access.” While Freedman said that issue was resolved with database publishers, Clancy responded that those publishers don’t have a model aimed at consumers. He noted that “the challenge of selling into this market is not Google’s core competence,” so consortial discounts are authorized in the agreement.

oops, I’m not at midwinter

Forgot to mention, I’m not going to Midwinter which by my estimations (and Flickr photostream) is already in progress. This is the first ALA in a long time where I haven’t had a professional responsibility to be there and so even though Seattle is the city of my dreams, I’m staying home and working with my group of librarians instead. None of them are going to ALA either. After a crazying but fun year of travel last year I decided that staying home for a few months was a little higher on my priority list than getting to Midwinter. I’ll be at Annual where I’ll be on a panel with Eric Alterman, talking about blogs. Hope to see you there, if not before!