"Free Our Libraries, Cry University Presidents"

A short article today in The Chronicle of Higher Education Wired Campus

Presidents of major universities want more library materials distributed online, without prohibitive charges.

At the Universal Access Digital Library Summit, held on September 24 and 25 at the Boston Public Library, Mark Huddleston, president of the University of New Hampshire, Peter Nicholls, provost of the University of Connecticut, and Jack Wilson, president of the University of Massachusetts, called for new approaches to the digitization of library collections that will allow access for all. The presidents urged libraries to halt what they described as an assault on the public’s right to knowledge, done in the name of copyright.

The meeting, which was convened by the Boston Library Consortium, featured the debut of “Free Our Libraries! Why We Need a New Approach to Putting Library Collections Online,” a white paper by Richard K. Johnson, senior advisor to the Association of Research Libraries. Mr. Johnson argues that libraries need to come up with new financing strategies, coordinate their actions, and adopt “forward-looking” principles to guide digitization projects. —Josh Fischman