Judge Denny Chin of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued this week a long-awaited ruling, rejecting a proposed settlement between Google and the plaintiffs (publishers and authors) in the Google Books lawsuit.

The University of Minnesota is not a party to the Google Books lawsuit, and the ruling in that suit does not affect the University of Minnesota participation in the Google scanning project, which is part of a 2007 joint agreement with the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC). It is the CIC's understanding that Google will continue scanning CIC library materials, including from the University of Minnesota Libraries, under the terms of the CIC/Google agreement.

Earlier this year, the CIC celebrated a major milestone: Google has digitized and returned a million volumes from member libraries. The CIC intends to fulfill the original agreement to scan up to 10 million volumes--public domain material will be returned to HathiTrust Digital Library and made publicly accessible, while in-copyright content will be indexed so users can more easily find relevant print content in our libraries.

Judge Chin ordered a status hearing in the Google Books case in late April, by which time the CIC expects to know more about how Google and the plaintiffs plan to move forward, and what the implications might be for member libraries.