New York University plans to digitize some holdings in its main library to give full access to students at its new branch campus in the Persian Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi. The Washington Square News, the New York campus’s student newspaper, reports that the government of Abu Dhabi, which is footing the bill for the branch campus, will cover the cost of digitizing the university’s 5.1 million volumes.
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4 Responses to NYU to Digitize Its Library With Money From Abu Dhabi
mbelvadi - October 19, 2009 at 8:00 pm
How are they handling the copyright issues? Are they prepared to spend money to go to court on a Fair Use claim? The implications of such a battle would be staggering for the entire non-profit library community.
glenn90 - October 20, 2009 at 8:56 am
Here is one way to achieve access for distributed learners!
11159995 - October 20, 2009 at 9:12 am
Presumably the government of Abu Dhabi has enough money to pay for permissions for digitizing in-copyright books. One wonders why that wasn’t included in the plan. Perhaps there is no copyright law in Abu Dhabi?
joshtaylor - October 20, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I encourage people to actually click over and read the Washington Square News story cited here in its entirety. This is a case of a reporter being 100-percent accurate with a quote, but drawing a wholly different conclusion that what she was actually told (or in this case, e-mailed).From the story:” ‘We do plan on the future digitization of materials at Bobst, for access by those in Abu Dhabi, and elsewhere in the global network university, as curricular and research needs demand it,’ NYUAD spokesman Josh Taylor wrote in an e-mail.”The final part of my quote is critical to understanding our long-term thinking on the subject. Digitizing for digitization’s sake isn’t a sound academic or economic strategy. However, digitizing as we identify specific curricular and research needs that would benefit from students and faculty being able to access materials in a city other than their own is an essential component of NYU’s vision for the global network university.Josh TaylorSenior Director for International CommunicationsNYU Abu Dhabi