SLA Conference: Copyright Roundtable
This was simply a roundtable of people sharing their experiences regarding copyright within their organizations. Most of the librarians worked for membership associations in the U.S. or Canada; others were university or government librarians. There was a digitization consultant there, as well as one oddball creature who works for a place where they give any content they have away (i.e., me).
Some of the librarians present not only contend with issues from acquiring outside content for in-house use but also oversee the distribution of their assn's copyrighted content to institutional members or outside clients. There were no "Eureka" moments, although some ideas were tossed around. The closest concepts that came to consensus were that:
1) Librarians are pretty much the copyright police for in-house use of content (as summed up by Jill Hurst-Wahl).
2) There's a disconnect between what end-users say they understand about copyright and what they really think are within the bounds of usage when they really want to acquire and/or share information with their colleagues.
Oh, and I learned something for a colleague: U.S. federal documents are in the public domain ... for U.S. citizens, residents, etc. only. I had no idea.
Eli
Association Information Services Caucus
Roundtable: Copyright and Licensing in Association Libraries in the Digital Age
Sunday -- June 5, 2005
Fairmont Royal York
6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Moderated by Megan Galaida
Introduction
Types of organizations represented:
Focus - how libraries distribute licensed content and the process for acquiring licenses
There are issues for copyright fees per copy for material acquired through document delivery for for-profit companies; having to remind users that they cannot make unlimited copies of all articles.
When a library transitions from print journals to digital/e-journals, switching licenses can result in larger costs.
'You can only have one copy: it can be paper or it can be electronic, but it can only be one copy'
University licenses: may have "walk-in" patrons added as part of a license, but some products are exclusively for affiliated parties (faculty, staff and students)
Some orgs parse informations to different members
Problems with compliance: people aren't connecting the principles of a copyright policy to the practice
DRM issues -- problems with plug-ins and accessibility impaired by DRM
Everything is negotiatable -- it shouldn't be/isn't a take-it-or-leave-it situation to acquire/license content
How open is vendor data/terms and conditions of contracts? Would it be possible to get contract details for public institutions (like state universities) via FOIA requests?