Librarian Way

Current copyright law impedes digitization projects and means that manuscripts, books, drawings, correspondence, and other tangible works will not be made publically available to researchers. In some cases, the works are much too fragile to let people handle them on location, so the works are lost information. Peter Hirtle highlights the loss of information through the current copyright protection laws in “Adopting ‘Orphan Works’,” a FAQ column article in RLG DigiNews April 15, 2005, Volume 9, Number 2. “‘Orphan works’ are works whose current copyright owner cannot be located.”

Hirtle explains that the 1989 copyright law removes “formalities associated with copyright protection” and establishes original copyright of an expression “as soon as it is fixed in a tangible medium.” There are significant problems in tracking copyright holders if they are no longer required to register their copyright. Furthermore, identifying who the copyright passed to after death can be impossible. The problem is made worse because “the duration of copyright has increased by an order of magnitude from the time of the Founding Fathers. …has expanded to become a term equivalent to the life of the author plus seventy years. Longer copyright terms greatly increase the likelihood that the identity of the current copyright owners will be lost.” In a footnote, Hirtle mentions that copyright infringement can cost up to $150,000 plus legal fees per infringement.

The article has many good links, including a link to a letter [PDF] from University Librarian Brian Schottlaender of UCSD to the US Copyright Office, in which he states, “The uncertain copyright status of orphan works imposes significant limitations on the UCSD Libraries’ ability to provide access to patrons in the digital world.” Schottlaender uses the Scripps Institute of Oceanogprahy Archives as an example, and he explains that Scripps Archives has made about 4000 images and 100,000 photographs available over the internet, but “this represents only a small subset of our photographic holdings.”

[Via Current Cites, April 2005]

The QuickTime movie of the lecture The Access to Knowledge Treaty: What if WIPO Actually Worked For Us? A Digital Dialog Lecture with Cory Doctorow, is available on the Internet Archive.

This was the lecture Cory Doctorow gave at UC, San Diego, on March 14, 2005: SSHL News & Events: Digital Dialog Lecture with Cory Doctorow.

[Via J. R. Jacobs on GOVDOC-L.]

Walt Crawford finally has a blog! Walt at Random. I thought because it is April 1st, that this might be an April Fools’ joke, but it isn’t.

For newbie librarians to be, Walt Crawford writes and edits Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large. In the Spring 2005 issue (v. 5, no. 5, 24 pages), he compares creating a newsletter in PDF versus HTML and explains why he believes his newsletter is better in PDF—precise control over formatting and, in his opinion, it is too long to read on screen. I have to agree, as I print it to read it. He also covers his tests in using various packages to create HTML output. This issue also has a long article pertaining to copyright issues: “Broadcast Flag and Grokster”.

Actually, Walt Crawford is someone you, SLIS students too, should read. His C&I newsletter is cited by RLG Field of Knowledge in their The Infography about Library News as a source for any librarian who has to keep current. Though he does or did work for RLG, I assume this recommendation is unbiased, as C&I is a very good read.

He has written a number of books. In my to read stack is an autographed copy of is his First Have Something to Say, which is about “writing for the library profession”. However, he is probably best known for his dicussions about technology in the library world. He is a prolific writer and has penned many articles and columns.