Google Book Search Settlement Agreement

The New York Times reported yesterday that Google had reached a settlement with publishers and authors over content that it displays from millions of scanned texts in its Google Book search service.

"Under the agreement, Google will now show up to 20 percent of the text at no charge to users. It will also make the entire book available online for a fee. Universities, libraries and other organizations will be able to buy subscriptions that make entire collections of those books available to their visitors."

More information about the future of Google Book search is provided on Google's settlement agreement page.

Wish List: RSS Feeds for New Book Titles

In an earlier post, I noted that Kumarian Press did not provide notification services and therefore represented a good candidate for "watching" via a web page monitoring service. As it happens, Kumarian Press now offers an RSS feed to inform users of its news and activities. (For example, I learned about the new classroom guide developed for Larry Minear's book, The Humanitarian Enterprise, from the feed.) Unfortunately, the RSS feed does not include a new book listing. Or at least, not so far.

KP is not alone. This LLRX.com article laments the fact that very few legal publishers offer RSS feeds of new titles. And my previously-posted brief listing of forced migration publishers suggests a parallel tendency to offer email updates over RSS feeds. One notable exception is Brill/Martinus Nijhoff, which offers an RSS feed for its "Refugees and Human Rights" series, as well as feeds for both forthcoming and newly available titles in various subject areas, including "human rights and humanitarian law."

In the meantime, my personal solution for keeping up with new books is to generate customized feeds for various keyword searches undertaken in Amazon.com, the online bookseller. I explain in this post how I then display the titles in the "new books" feature I make available in my other blog, Forced Migration Current Awareness.

Forced Migration Book Publishers

The companies listed below regularly publish forced migration-related titles. Notification services that they offer are also indicated.

Berghahn Books
- Publishes the Studies in Forced Migration series edited by the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC). Sign up for their mailing list and select "refugee studies" as your area of interest to receive information about new titles.

Brookings Institution Press
- Publishes books produced by the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, among others. Sign up for their weekly e-mail newsletter for book news.

Kumarian Press
- Publishes humanitarian titles including the World Disasters Report series. Their RSS feed provides news about recent developments and activities.

Lexington Books
- Publishes the Program on Migration and Refugee Studies series, advisors for which are based at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM). E-mail notification of new titles is available by broad subject category.

Martinus Nijhoff Publishers
- Publishes the Refugees and Human Rights series. Subscribe to their "human rights and humanitarian law" RSS feeds for forthcoming titles or new books.

Oxford University Press
- Publishes The State of the World's Refugees series for UNHCR as well as editions of The Refugee in International Law. New books are announced in monthly subject-based e-mail newsletters.

Routledge
- Publishes the Global Institutions series, which includes titles on UNHCR, ICRC and other humanitarian organizations. Sign up for eUpdates by subject.