As I read the Court’s opinion, Judge Chin’s decision appears to turn on four main elements:

1. Inadequate representation of the class members: The large number and variety of objections to the Settlement by proposed class members (authors and publishers), combined with what the judge characterized as a large number of opt-outs (6800 rights holders had opted out of the Settlement before it was approved), led Judge Chin to conclude that the interests of rights holders were not adequately represented.  UC faculty were among the objectors cited in Judge Chin’s opinion;
2. Forward-looking business models: Commercial exploitation of the scanned corpus through the creation of a set of ‘forward-looking’ business models – i.e. an Institutional Subscription and consumer sales of individual ebooks – went too far beyond the scope of the original complaint.  Without using the language of the Department of Justice’s brief, the judge agreed with its assessment that these arrangements were indeed “a bridge too far;”
3. Copyright concerns: Judge Chin’s ruling articulated two sets of copyright-related concerns:  that the opt-out structure of the proposed Settlement services pre-empted the exclusive rights of copyright owners, and that it would have created a private solution to complex issues of copyright law, such as access to orphan works and the relationship to international copyright treaties, that are the appropriate domain of Congress;
4. Monopoly concerns: Allowing Google to profit from services built on orphan and out-of-print works scanned in violation of copyright law would give Google a monopoly advantage in the marketplace and arguably enhance its de-facto search monopoly as well.  The Settlements restriction against allowing other commercial entities to crawl and index the Google Books corpus also weighed as a factor in the court’s judgment that the Settlement would have the effect of “further entrenching Google’s market power.”

Judge Chin went on to suggest that he would consider approving the Settlement if it were changed to an ‘opt-in’ rather than an ‘opt-out’ regime, removing the above objections, and he encouraged the parties to revise the Settlement accordingly in order to preserve what he also acknowledged as the Google books project’s many benefits.  (The Association of Research Libraries has also prepared a usefully concise summary.)

What path things will take next, no one yet knows.  The publisher plaintiffs have issued a statement indicating that they are prepared to modify the Settlement to satisfy the Court;  the Authors’ Guild has also indicated its interest in a revised agreement that can breathe new commercial life into out-of-print works.  Google has yet to weigh in definitively, saying thus far only that it is disappointed in the ruling and is studying its options.  A status conference before the Court is scheduled for April 25^th, approximately one month from now.

Meanwhile, many of Google’s major research library partners in the U.S., including the University of California, have voiced their unwavering commitment to the digitization of their collections both for preservation purposes and for the advancement of teaching, scholarship, and the public’s access to information.  You can read here the statements from UC, Stanford, and Michigan.  These and many other Google library partners are also members of HathiTrust, a shared preservation and access repository for the digitized book collections of its now more than 50 member libraries (8.4 million volumes and growing, 2.2 million of which are in the public domain).  HathiTrust has issued its own statement affirming its commitment to a shared digital future enabled by largescale digitization of member library collections.  More discussions among all of these players will surely take place over the next days and weeks.  And digitization continues.

What do I think about all of this?   Although I’m certainly no legal scholar, I share the view expressed by many other knowledgeable commentators that Judge Chin’s analysis was probably correct and possibly unavoidable.  (Two of the most cogent legal commentaries can be found in this post from New York Law School’s James Grimmelmann and in a Chronicle of Higher Education interview with UC Berkeley’s Pamela Samuelson.) Nonetheless, it’s also the case that the legislative process has thus far been unable to produce the critical reforms needed to admit orphan and other long out-of-print works into the digital ecosystem.  The Settlement was an opportunity to advance such reforms—through private action, true, but with many safeguards in place for rights holders, and the strong possibility of follow-on legislation to generalize an approach to orphan works.  If the parties agree to an opt-in regime, the value an institutional library subscription will be significantly diminished, and Google’s competitors may be less motivated to join libraries in pressing for orphan works legislation than they might otherwise have been.

There are two potential silver linings in a possible opt-in future.  Rights holders, their prerogative no longer questioned, may suddenly find themselves flocking to be let in rather than left out, leading to the inclusion of more recent works in the Settlement services than might otherwise have been the case (including perhaps, if non-U.S. works are reintroduced into the Settlement, some foreign works that now make up the lion’s share of the mass digitized corpus). This could produce a more tightly-scoped Institutional Subscription providing full-view access to a set of relatively recent works that would otherwise be unlikely to enter the digital domain in the near term, with appropriate compensation to rights holders.  Second, excluding orphan works from the Settlement will give libraries a freer hand in making determinations about appropriate fair use of this material.  If orphan works legislation succeeds, the benefits to and constraints on libraries are likely to be significant improvements over the Settlement’s terms.

By the Numbers

A recent analysis of the HathiTrust corpus by John Wilkin of the University of Michigan Library attempts to put some numbers to these categories.  Part informed analysis and part guesswork, Wilkin’s estimates, largely intended to inform the orphan works debate, suggest that as many as 50% of the books held in U.S. research libraries may be orphan works, a third of them published in the U.S.  For the 5 million titles in the HathiTrust corpus, this translates to 800,000 U.S. orphans and 2.5 million orphans overall. The total numbers in GBS would of course be larger, perhaps two times as large or more.  (A separate analysis by industry expert Michael Cairns estimated the number of orphan works at roughly 580,000.  Cairns analysis draws a distinction between ‘titles’ and ‘works;’ the former are much larger than the latter, since the same work can appear in many variant editions and formats.)

What about the potential opt-ins?  Wilkin’s analysis suggests that in-copyright books in HathiTrust eligible for opt-in treatment (i.e. with known rights holders) comprise on the order of 22% of the total. In HathiTrust terms, this would still equate to something approaching 1 million titles if both U.S. and non-U.S. works were included, but fewer than 300,000 if the Settlement remains restricted to (or attracts) U.S. rights holders only.  These figures also include many works still in print, leaving the number of out-of-print books eligible for inclusion in an Institutional Subscription still smaller (some estimates put the number of in-print works at about 5%).  Again, these figures would be larger for the Google Books corpus overall, perhaps by a factor of two.   This is a best case scenario, since requiring rights holders to opt in would be a labor-intensive and years-long process.  Whether the swiss cheese of an opt-in regime excluding orphan works will provide a sufficient financial incentive for Google and the plaintiffs to go forward is something we’re about to learn in the coming weeks.

A Change in the Weather

In the meantime, the world has changed greatly since the Google Settlement was first announced in 2008, and new avenues for surfacing the world’s books are emerging.  In my earlier blog piece, I argued for approval of the Settlement, but I also asserted that its rejection would not be a make or break event for libraries.  I still hold that view.  In the long interval between the original Settlement proposal and now, many leading actors have developed alternative visions for a future universal digital library.  HathiTrust has emerged to assert its stewardship over partner library collections, at a scale that rivals Google’s.  Many libraries in Europe and elsewhere around the globe have been motivated to invest in largescale digitization of their own national literatures—tellingly, not a few of these in partnership with Google.  Robert Darnton at Harvard has exhorted us to set our sights on a national digital public library free of commercial entanglement and has galvanized a vibrant community around that vision.  The Internet Archive has recently launched a promising digital lending library partnership.  And legal scholars such as UC’s own Pamela Samuelson have begun crafting proposals for copyright and orphan works reform that may further unlock the doors to our cultural heritage.  A redoubling of legislative effort toward this end is, in my view, the most important action we ought to pursue; and the timing couldn’t be better.

Finally (for now)…

Whichever path one favors on the next leg of this journey, Google’s enterprising vision has been and remains a key animating force behind all of these initiatives. As the Ice Road Trucker fan whose 2008 Congressional testimony appears in my GBS clip at the head of this article said:  “…if we look back through history, we can see various spurts of innovation to try to address things that affect both supply and demand in the marketplace[.]”  Even some of Google’s staunchest critics have acknowledged that Google’s contributions in this arena have been an important gift, seeding further innovation (see for example Peter Brantley’s comments in the last paragraph of this article).  Without GBS, the digital books ferment all around us would assuredly look very different than it does today.

Digital ferment?  I’m going to need a new metaphor…

Rosalie Lack will be leaving the CDL in early March for an exciting new opportunity as Deputy Director of an international non-profit library consortium called eIFL.net (http://www.eifl.net/ ). Her last day at the CDL will be March 8^th.

Rosalie’s contributions in her over 10 years with the CDL have been diverse and immeasurable.  From the MIS e-resource database (our first ERMS!) to Counting California, from Calisphere to the Image Service and the redesigned OAC site, from Public Content Manager to Director of Digital Special Collections (DSC), Rosalie’s work has been inextricably entwined with many of our most important public-facing services.   In addition, Rosalie was a veritable ‘Girl Friday’ in her early years at the CDL: she has been involved in assessment and evaluation (focus groups, usability testing, etc);  was resource liaison coordinator for a time; gathered and reported on vendor statistics;  created outreach materials; updated the CDL website; and created educational materials such as user guides.  As I have watched the accolades stream in from the campuses in response to her announcement to DSC content contributors, it’s clear that Rosalie’s work and dedication have had a positive and lasting impact not only on CDL but on the UC Libraries as a whole.  She will be missed by many, many colleagues throughout UC.

Now Rosalie is pursuing a personal passion to work with developing countries. eIFL.net will allow her to do that, while using her digital library knowledge and experience. From my own work at ICOLC (International Coalition of Library Consortia), I know that eiFL.net is highly regarded for its innovative programs and services.  Best of all perhaps, eiFL.net is based in one of Rosalie’s favorite cities:  Rome!  Rosalie will spend her first six months or so in Rome and then will work remotely from the Bay area.

CDL will be working over the next several weeks to define an interim strategy that ensures continuity of DSC services. In the meantime, I know that everyone joins me in being proud and excited for Rosalie as she embarks on this new and exciting adventure.

Ivy Anderson, Director of Collections
California Digital Library

(The image presented here is a mashup: for the actual book in HathiTrust, see http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b543888)

Late last week, Google and the plaintiffs filed their final briefs in defense of the Google Books Amended Settlement Agreement (ASA) that is before the New York Southern Federal District Court.  As the rhetoric around the Settlement heats up to white-hot intensity in the final days before the Fairness Hearing on February 18^th, I’d like to offer a few personal thoughts from my vantage point at the California Digital Library.

The University of California Context

CDL and indeed the UC Libraries as a whole bring what is perhaps a unique perspective to this dispute.  The University of California Libraries are Google’s second-largest library digitization partner;  we are also the second-largest book digitization partner of the Internet Archive, thanks to generous funding in the past from Microsoft, Yahoo, the Alfred P. Sloan and Kahle/Austin foundations, and other sponsors.  In all, UC Libraries have now digitized 2.5M books from their collections through these projects, both in- and out of copyright.

CDL also occupies an unusual position in this debate within our own community of scholars at the University of California, where some of our closest faculty colleagues are also among the Settlement’s most prominent critics.  While many assume this to be an uncomfortable position, I don’t find it so.  Like any complex enterprise, the Google Books project is appropriately viewed from many perspectives.  The proposed settlement is hardly perfect; as Google acknowledges in its brief, it’s a compromise among parties with differing agendas and motivations.  CDL is a staunch supporter of the underlying aims of the Google Books project to make the knowledge enshrined in the world’s great libraries discoverable and accessible across the globe, and we support the public benefits that will ensue, including the benefits to libraries, if the Settlement is approved.  At the same time, public criticism has been good for the Settlement, producing very real improvements in the amended version that is now before the court;  improvements that would not have been made without that criticism. Long live democracy!

Digitization Partnerships: The Promise and the Peril

Like many of the objectors, participating libraries went through their own period of outrage and indignation when details of the Settlement first came to light.  What!  We would have to buy back access to our own books??  Why did Google let us down in abandoning its fair use defense??  Why should the parties be allowed to create an artificial revenue model for works that are long out of print, books that would no longer exist at all outside of used bookstores if the libraries themselves hadn’t purchased and maintained them at great expense over decades and indeed generations??  How can they do this without our agreement as to terms, since it is we who have made these books available to them in the first place??  Hasn’t our stewardship paid for these books many times over??  Isn’t this why copyright law contains unique exceptions for libraries, in recognition of our mission to further the public good??  Wasn’t the appropriate use of our own copies in light of fair use principles our decision to make??

The problem with this view, of course, is that libraries did not initiate this enterprise, and we are not its only beneficiaries.  The Google project placed two sets of commercial interests at loggerheads, with copyright law in the middle.  Admittedly, libraries took a risk in engaging in a partnership so legally entangled.

But let’s be honest:  though few seem willing to admit it, revitalizing the world’s heritage of books for a digital age – a task that many considered impossible only a few short years ago – appears within reach today almost entirely due to Google’s enterprising vision.  Even the Open Content Alliance, which CDL joined a year before becoming a Google partner,  was in some sense a response to GBS (although it had other important antecedents as well, thanks to Brewster Kahle’s equally inspired vision).  When Google’s competitors withdrew their support for that project, no other funders stepped in to fill the breach.  The plain fact is that despite the idealistic adjurations of some, the resources required to digitize our cultural book heritage on a grand scale are not likely to be marshaled in the U.S. by libraries and the public sector alone.

At least, not in our lifetimes. At CDL, we’ve done some estimating of what it would take to convert the roughly 15 million unique books in University of California library collections to digital form absent the Google enterprise using the best alternative technology available today.  The answer?   Half a billion dollars, and one and a half centuries.

And that is just the University of California’s books.

I like to compare this to the building of the great Temple of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, a city with which my family has an ancestral connection.  When my husband’s grandmother left Barcelona as a young girl in the late 19th century, the Sagrada Familia had barely erected its first stone.  In 2006 more than 125 years later, her great-granddaughter traveled to Barcelona for the first time, where she was able to observe Gaudi’s monumental edifice, still under construction.  At this writing, completion is projected for 2026.

Like the Sagrada Familia, without the Google Books Project we could still be building the digital library of the future 100 years from now.

The speed at which Google is converting this content is not without costs of its own.  Google’s iterative approach to building large-scale services has drawn criticism from some scholars accustomed to work that is honed and polished before it is released.  This is in part an argument about means, not ends. Like those progressive JPEG images that start out blurry on the screen and become sharper as the details fill in, Google’s services are improving over time as it continually upgrades and enhances its images and metadata.  Over time we will be able to replace those missing or still-blurry pages with better versions.  Where the value of the content warrants it, we can selectively invest in more meticulous rendering, textual markup, and other enhancements.

Two cases are illustrative here.  CDL has digitized a large number of public domain books with the Internet Archive, some of which have also been digitized in our Google partnership.  Although CDL had to suspend its Internet Archive book scanning project earlier this year after Microsoft withdrew its support and additional grant funding proved elusive, we have every expectation that we will take up comparable projects with Internet Archive in future, because its technology is better suited to certain types of uses (better artifactual rendering, for example).  The Early English Books Online (EEBO) database marketed by ProQuest is another example in which through an innovative partnership with libraries and scholars basic scans are enhanced with detailed markup for a subset of carefully-selected works.

In the meantime, a great deal of value is already being derived from the Google work as it stands today.  Students and scholars report finding much formerly-hidden material, journalists and etymologists are mining its content for historical information, and even some of Google’s severest critics have said that they can no longer imagine life without GBS.  This is neither an either-or proposition nor a zero-sum game.  All of these services are fulfilling a niche, along with libraries, in a new information ecology that we are only beginning to understand even as we participate in its unfolding.

EEBO, by the way, is also a good example – of which there are countless others that one can point to – of the long history of successful library-vendor partnerships to make content available to a wider audience.  Like the much-feared Google Institutional Subscription, most of these products have a monopoly over the particular aggregations they market; it simply makes no economic sense to digitize certain corpora over and over again, particularly when libraries themselves are the primary consumers.  Somehow, libraries have survived (and even thrived) through these arrangements, and students and scholars have benefited.

Settlement Pro and Con

So in the long run, is the Google Settlement a good thing, or a bad thing?  Before answering that question, let’s look at just a few of the major criticisms that have been levied against the Settlement.

The Institutional Subscription will become too expensive because it has no meaningful competition. Well, it’s hard to know that, of course.  In fact, we don’t even know today how many books it will contain, nor what the scan or OCR quality of the content will be given the variability of the overall corpus.  But we do know that there are at least three checks on the institutional subscription price that should mitigate price-gouging.  First, the broad distribution requirement in the Settlement’s dual objectives means that prices cannot become so high that few choose to subscribe.  Second, libraries themselves are savvy evaluators and negotiators of online content who can be expected to evaluate this offering rigorously and skeptically, and to eschew a subscription unless the price is acceptable for the benefit derived.  Since none of us knows how our users will engage with this material, these assessments ought to be conservative.  Third, the provisions for pricing arbitration built into the agreements between Google and the participating libraries will allow them to challenge price increases that they deem unwarranted;  a provision that is intended to be exercised not on the basis of narrow self-interest among a small set of contributing libraries but on behalf of all libraries.

Academic authors want to release their books, not see them locked up. Indeed, no disagreement here; and the amended Settlement now explicitly provides for this (according to Google and the plaintiffs, this was always possible, but in the ASA it is now called out).  We intend to work proactively with rights holders who would like to enable broader access to their books and to develop mechanisms that can help to make this straightforward.

The Settlement will give Google a monopoly over orphan works and is anti-competitive. It’s hard for me to see how Google’s activities to date can be viewed as anti-competitive when GBS is almost single-handedly responsible for the ebook explosion that is swirling all around us, with new entrants popping up every day.  That may be a controversial assertion, but ebooks and ebook readers were a languishing backwater until Google stimulated the market by putting books online through its library and publisher partner programs.  If anything, Google’s entrance into the retail space is likely to engender even fiercer competition.  It seems cynical at best for rival behemoths Microsoft and Amazon to decry Google’s impending monopoly over a sliver of the ebook market – much of it of uncertain commercial value – under the noble-sounding rubric of the Open Book Alliance.  But then, competition makes strange bedfellows.  As to orphan works, the Settlement should if anything goad us all the more toward a legislative solution. It is as irksome to me as it is to other critics that Google should be uniquely empowered to collect royalties on behalf of absent rights holders who may have long ago relinquished any economic interest in their works.  Still, the ASA addresses this in a far more satisfying manner than its predecessor.  Finding a better long-term solution to the orphan works problem is something we all can get behind.

When the purposes that we first envisioned when embarking on these projects – all arguably fair uses of this content – are reviewed against the Settlement impacts, it’s hard to view the Settlement as anything but a positive development.  More books will be available in full view, both to libraries and to consumers. New services will be developed for print-disabled users and for largescale computational analysis, further unlocking digitization’s transformative potential.  Disclosure of rights information through a central registry (at least for U.S. books) is likely to have far-reaching impacts, facilitating the eventual orderly release of books into the public domain.  Google’s competitors are likely to join the push for orphan works legislation, increasing its chances of success.  And with the Settlement behind us, we can all proceed in an environment of greater certainty.

What if the Settlement is not approved?

For libraries, failure of the agreement would hardly be a crisis.  The benefits that we initially envisioned – improved discovery and full text search of our vast legacy collections, and broad public availability of works that are out of copyright or otherwise released by their copyright owners – will still be realized.  The fears of some Settlement objectors – of monopolistic pricing and the forced commercialization of materials that are long out-of-print – will melt away like the elusive Vancouver snow.  Participating libraries may still choose to undertake novel services, without the unwelcome restrictions imposed by the Settlement. As long as Google and others continue to partner with us, we will go forward in reinvigorating our collections for a new digital age.

The Google Settlement is fundamentally about whether Google and rights holders will be allowed to implement a particular set of business models for a certain set of books.  I believe the Settlement should be approved, because it will create new and valuable services for libraries as well as consumers.  But many of Google’s participating libraries have their own plans for these books, plans that do not ultimately depend on the outcome of the Settlement.  The greatest risk for libraries if the Settlement is not approved is that further legal setbacks might lead Google to abandon its interest in library digitization altogether.  If that were to happen, a unique opportunity would be lost that is not likely to be repeated in our lifetime.

Life Beyond Google Book Search

What of our relationship to the Google Books project itself?  Some of the concerns we hear from faculty have nothing to do with the Settlement per se, but rather with the long-term implications of GBS for library collections and services.  Let me close with a few words about some of those concerns.

To our scholars who worry that we are about to throw our physical collections overboard in favor of digital surrogates of sometimes uneven quality, I want to say:  not to worry.  True, libraries everywhere find themselves having to consign more and more of their physical collections to remote storage as campus space grows increasingly scarce and user preferences migrate online.  And some libraries – the UCs far less than others – are addressing the space crunch by de-accessioning low-use materials that are widely held with the knowledge that they can borrow these items from another library if need be.  (Many [cooperative initiatives] are now underway to share such information and ensure that enough copies are retained throughout the nation’s system of libraries to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.)  That train has already left the station, and it’s happening independently of largescale digitization.  What digitization offers is a valuable complementary mitigation strategy:  we can now make those remote collections eminently browsable, saving time and expense both for users and for libraries.  As a library user, you can now determine whether that book is really what you’re looking for before you request it, not afterward – and in some cases, the digital surrogate may indeed be all that you need.  Libraries can promote these ‘hidden’ volumes more effectively to their users, while limiting delivery costs to just those items that are truly wanted.  This browsable and/or searchable digital surrogate – which is the quality level that most of the Google mass digitized scans are aimed at –  is not a replacement for the original print book, and was never intended to be.

To our scholars who worry that we are outsourcing our library collections and services to Google, again I want to say:  please don’t worry on this score either.  Far from abrogating our mission as stewards of the cultural record, we who have opened up our collections to digitization are shouldering this role with vigor.  While Google and others are making these books discoverable online to a general audience, the University of California along with other peer institutions is creating a robust shared access and preservation service for our mass digitized books, one that adheres to professional standards, through our partnership in a ground-breaking enterprise called the HathiTrust.  If you haven’t heard of HathiTrust yet, you soon will.  No UC library user need go to Google to search the full text of our books, or to find accurate bibliographic information, or to view and download those that are in the public domain;  s/he can go to http://catalog.hathitrust.org/ and be reassured that those books will be there, in ever-improved versions, for the long-term.  HathiTrust now numbers 5.4 million volumes from 26 libraries and is growing at a rapid rate, all searchable, all viewable if in the public domain (or otherwise rights-cleared), and all designed to inure to the long-term benefit of the nation’s libraries and their users.  The digital library of the future resides not with Google, but with us.  And we are building it today.

At the same time, Google, Internet Archive, and others, are providing an invaluable service in bringing the vast holdings of the great research libraries to a worldwide audience and integrating that content with general-purpose internet search services and other content. As one colleague has written, “Who among us has not benefited from a Google search?”  In participating in these efforts, we are fulfilling our long-standing public service mission. The Google Settlement, if approved, will further these aims by providing more content, in more ways, to an even wider audience.

But in the end, approval of the Settlement is not a make or break event for libraries. Despite the claim that the Google Settlement promises to build “the greatest library in history,” libraries are not leaving the future of information to Google and these other partners alone.  Nor need we wait, Godot-like, for fugitive national legislation to begin the work of serving up our cultural heritage in digital form. Through a combination of efforts, including public-private partnerships such as that of libraries with Google, we can go forward in this transformative enterprise together.

CDL and the UC Collection Development Committee, with UL endorsement, have jointly drafted an Open Letter to Licensed Content Vendors to advise content vendors with whom we conduct business of the serious economic challenges facing the University of California Libraries.  The letter asks vendors to work with us on creative solutions to preserve the greatest amount of content possible to meet the information needs of the University of California’s students, faculty, and researchers.

The letter has been posted to the Vendors and Content Providers page on the CDL website and has also been distributed to the Liblicense-L mailing list.  The letter received some national publicity via an article in the LJ Academic Newswire on Thursday, May 28, 2009.

Campuses are welcome to link to this letter from their own sites and/or adapt it for local use.  A copy of the letter has been mailed to major vendors and made available to Resource Liaisons to share with vendors at conferences and other venues.

Please contact Ivy Anderson (ivy.anderson@ucop.edu) if you have questions or comments.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that Holly Eggleston has accepted a position as Electronic Resource Analyst at the CDL beginning January 2, 2009.  Holly comes to the CDL from UC San Diego, where she has served as Assistant Head of Acquisitions since 2005.  Prior to joining UCSD, Holly worked in a variety of positions both in libraries and in the technology sector, filling positions as varied as business librarian; user assessment coordinator; the head of bibliographic management services at the University of Montana; software training coordinator at Bellevue Community College; project manager and database designer, development and training consultant at a Seattle-based technology company; and product support, software testing and quality assurance engineer at Microsoft Corporation.  Most recently, Holly has led two projects at UCSD that bode well for her new role at CDL: co-chair of the InCommon Library/Shibboleth project, a pilot involving six peer institutions; and chair of the UC San Diego Libraries Ebook Task Force.  Holly holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Evergreen State College and a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Washington.

Holly’s personal interests are as wide-ranging as her professional career has been to date.  In Holly’s own words:

“I’m a rabid generalist and always seem to be in the process of learning a new sport or skill.  Some of my more lasting interests include motorcycles, sustainable living, finding good happy hour spots, poker and camping.  Fun fact: I lived in the Mission exactly 10 years ago (for the six months prior to library school), and took trapeze classes at the SF School of Circus Arts.”

As CDL Electronic Resource Analyst, Holly will be responsible for two primary areas within the CDL Collections Program: organizing and managing the Resource Liaison program, and managing the technical integration of licensed electronic resources into CDL systems and services, including technical requirements, vendor relationships, and ongoing lifecycle management activities.  Holly will also have a major role in CDL’s implementation of the Serials Solutions ERMS.

Please join us in a warm anticipatory welcome as Holly prepares to relocate to the Bay Area and assume her new post at the CDL.

After a careful evaluation, CDL has selected Serials Solutions 360 Resource Manager to manage the CDL’s shared licensing activities for Tier 1 and CDL-supported Tier 2 resources.

CDL put in place a rigorous evaluation process, including a detailed set of functional and business requirements, with a goal of selecting an approach and formulating a project plan by September of this year.  Two early components of CDL’s assessment included an evaluation of whether to consider local development as an alternative to a vended solution and, for the latter option, whether to seek a hosted solution or a locally-managed system.  CDL quickly found that local development would not be a fruitful option and determined that a hosted system would be preferable for operational reasons, particularly given the extensive staff resources dedicated to the Next Generation Melvyl Pilot support by WorldCat Local.

CDL then focused its activities on a detailed assessment of the two leading vendor products, Innovative Interfaces, Inc. (III) and Serials Solutions.  The evaluation included a detailed set of functional requirements, several in-house presentations and demonstrations as well as hands-on access to a test system to the maximum extent allowed by each vendor.

While neither system provides all of the functionality CDL desires and each possesses different strengths and weaknesses, the evaluation produced a clear winner in Serials Solutions due to a variety of factors:

• its superior knowledgebase
• better workflow support
• its experience operating a hosted solution
• the ability to operate in a web-based environment without the need for dedicated client software
• a commitment to open standards and interoperability
• an agile development process
• vendor responsiveness
• significantly lower cost.

CDL anticipates the Serials Solutions system will evolve rapidly in the near term to develop improved functionality for consortial licensing activities and that Serials Solutions will be highly responsive to UC requirements.  Campuses will have read-only access to the system to look up information.

Lena Zentall will serve as ERMS Project Manager going forward and will be working on an implementation plan and timetable.  We will keep the campuses apprised as these plans unfold.  Campuses should feel free to contact Lena (lena.zentall@ucop.edu) with any questions about CDL’s implementation plans.

Beginning immediately through December 31st 2008, a public trial of all English-language Springer electronic books is available to UC library users via the Springer Link website at http://springerlink.com/home/main.mpx.  The broad trial is being made available as part of an ebook pilot project undertaken on behalf of the UC systemwide Collection Development Committee (CDC).

As many of you know, CDC convened a task force last year under Jim Dooley’s (Merced) leadership to take a fresh look at the ebook market and develop principles and recommendations for systemwide investments in electronic book content.  The deliberations of that group (available at http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/cdc/taskforces/ebooks_final_report.pdf) resulted in a recommendation to pursue strategic opportunities to experiment with ebook licenses that meet UC’s desire for flexible business models and favorable licensing and use rights.  Following the task force’s work, CDC identified Springer as a publisher who met these criteria, and asked CDL to pursue an ebook pilot with Springer.  The pilot task force will study and make recommendations concerning which Springer ebooks to license and how they should be acquired and made available, in consultation with UC bibliographers, as well as technical and public service librarians.

A rectangular orange logo on the left-hand side of the Springer Link screen announces that the trial is being made available courtesy of the UC Libraries (note: Springer Protocols are not included in the trial).  UC librarians are invited to publicize the trial to their users, but should do so with the understanding that more focused selection decisions – for example, licensing specific Springer subject collections or series – will be made later this fall, with the intent to restrict access to only these licensed collections at the start of the 2009 calendar year.  A formal user assessment will be conducted later on as the pilot project unfolds.

Please feel free to send questions and comments about the pilot to the CDL Help Desk or to any member of the Springer Pilot task force:  Ivy Anderson and Emily Stambaugh (CDL), co-chairs, Janet Carter (Los Angeles), Jim Dooley (Merced), Martha Hruska (San Diego), Brian Quigley (Berkeley), Michelle Potter (Riverside), Keith Powell (Irvine), Lucia Snowhill (Santa Barbara), and Adolfo Tarango (San Diego).

The closing date for the Electronic Resource Analyst position has been extended to July 10, 2008.  See original article for details.

CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
ELECTRONIC RESOURCE ANALYST
Salary: $53,136 – $74,352 (Minimum of Range – Midpoint of Range)
Job #: 20080168
Close Date: 06/19/2008

The California Digital Library (CDL) invites applications for the position of Electronic Resource Analyst. The position offers a leadership opportunity to provide systemwide services in a world-renown public university. The California Digital Library, a unit of the University of California Office of the President, was established in 1997 to support the assembly and creative use of the world’s scholarship and knowledge for the of California libraries and the communities they serve. In so doing, it directly supports UC’s mission of teaching, research, and public service. The CDL comprises five distinctive programs emphasizing the development and management of digital collections, innovation in scholarly publishing, and the long-term preservation of digital information. More information about the CDL is available at: http://www.cdlib.org/index.html

Working under the direction of the Director, Collections, the incumbent has primary responsibility for leading the California Digital Library’s (CDL) development of technical standards and policy pertaining to licensed resources and for ensuring that licensed resources possess superior functionality that meets the educational and research needs of UC students and faculty. As part of this responsibility, the incumbent chairs the CDL committee that prioritizes and resolves technical issues with vendors, pursues desired enhancements, and builds and maintains positive relationships with vendor technical and product development staff. The incumbent is also responsible for managing the CDL’s Resource Liaison Program, recruiting and working closely with over 100 UC campus librarians on vendor issues and ongoing management of licensed electronic resources. Lastly, the incumbent is a key participant in the integration of online collections into the CDL service infrastructure and in delivering user services in support of the CDL.

JOB REQUIREMENTS

• Master’s Degree in Library and Information Sciences or a related subject specialty, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• At least three years of experience working with online resources in a library or vendor setting; experience working with electronic resources in an academic library preferred.
• Expert understanding of underlying technical aspects of electronic resources design, access and use, including database structures, user interfaces, indexing, search algorithms, browser technologies, authentication technologies, and link resolvers.
• Strong working knowledge of library technical standards such as MARC, openURL, Z39.50, COUNTER, and SUSHI.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to research complex technical problems, determine the nature or source of the problem, and identify and recommend solutions.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including the ability to effectively convey and explain detailed technical information to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong interpersonal skills, including a demonstrated ability to tactfully deal with diverse people, situations and ideas.
• Demonstrated leadership and facilitation skills, and proven ability to work collaboratively in a team environment.
• Ability to handle difficult situations under pressure, balance competing priorities, and manage time effectively in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience with creating and carrying out group training or teaching activities.
• Proficiency with HTML and web authoring tools such as HTML, browsers and Dreamweaver.
• Thorough knowledge of Microsoft Office suite of software and experience in effectively using Word, Excel and PowerPoint to create documents, reports and presentations.
• Working knowledge and understanding of the University of California’s mission, organizational structures, operations, programs, and policies (preferred).

The University of California (UC), one of the largest and most acclaimed institutions of higher learning in the world, is dedicated to excellence in teaching, research and public service. The UC Office of the President is the corporate headquarters to the ten campuses, five medical centers and two Department of Energy National Labs and enrolls premier students from California, the nation, and the world. University benefits include medical, dental and vision insurance effective on the first day of employment, a generous sick, vacation and paid holiday program, an excellent retirement savings and investment plan, and more.

HOW TO APPLY: For a complete job description or to apply for this position, please click here. Please be prepared to attach your resume and cover letter as part of the application process.

University of California is an Equal Opportunity /Affirmative Action employer.

It is with much regret that we announce that Robin Chandler will be leaving the California Digital Library on November 30th to accept an appointment as Digital Library Program Manager at UC San Diego.

Robin has been a creative force at the CDL since her arrival in 2000.  Under her leadership as Director of Built Content, CDL cemented its reputation as a nexus of cultural heritage digital archives for the state of California.  Projects that owe their existence and/or development to Robin include the Online Archive of California, CalCultures, the Local History Digital Resources Project, and the American West virtual collection.  Most recently as Director of Data Acquisitions, Robin’s work at CDL has been synonymous with mass digitization.  Due to the efforts of Robin and her team working in close collaboration with campus libraries across UC, a robust infrastructure has been put into place through which more than half a million volumes from University of California collections have been digitized in partnership with the Open Content Alliance, Google, and Microsoft.

The CDL wishes Robin well as she explores new challenges as a valued colleague and collaborative partner in digital library development at UC.

Organization of CDL Data Acquisitions Activities Effective December 1st

In preparing for Robin’s departure, we have given considerable thought to how best to organize the diverse responsibilities currently performed by Robin’s unit within the CDL.  These activities generally fall into two areas:

• Data consultancy and ingest for CDL digital collections, including OAC, Calisphere, and the Local History Digital Resources Project (LHDRP)
• Mass digitization project coordination and partner relations

Staff contacts for these activities will continue unchanged, ensuring a high level of continuity for UC colleagues and other institutional partners.  Beginning December 1st , overall responsibility for these areas will be organized as follows:

• The Data Consultancy unit, including OAC and LHDRP, will report to the CDL’s Digital Special Collections Program, directed by Rosalie Lack.  Staff within this unit include:
• Adrian Turner, Data Consultant, LHDRP
• Gabriela Montoya, Built Content Operations Technician
• Data Consultant (currently vacant)

• Mass Digitization will reside within the CDL Collections Program, directed by Ivy Anderson.  Staff within this unit include:
• Heather Christenson, Mass Digitization Project Manager
• Ann Jensen, Projects Liaison
• Paul Fogel, Technical Lead

Colleagues both within and outside of UC should continue to interact with the staff in these units as you do currently.  As we approach Robin’s departure date, some leadership roles and responsibilities will shift to accommodate changes in reporting.  Beginning December 1st, questions and concerns relating to overall policy and program management can be directed respectively to Rosalie Lack for data consultancy and Ivy Anderson for mass digitization activities.

We are confident that this alignment will enable the CDL to maintain a high level of service and momentum in these strategically vital activities.  Please contact Ivy Anderson (ivy.anderson@ucop.edu) or Rosalie Lack (rosalie.lack@ucop.edu) with any questions.