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]

In the April 2005 issue of Library Journal there is an article that discusses digital libraries in the context of Ranganathan’s laws. Michèle Cloonan and John Dove, in Ranganathan Online, specifically address the third law—every book, its reader—and give insights on the question, “Do digital libraries violate the Third Law?”

They write, “While Google was not originally designed as a library resource, it is now so prevalent in libraries that we must test whether it measures up to the principles of librarianship.”

In the section “the semantic web,” they state, “The third law is violated when valuable resources that would truly delight the reader are effectively hidden away or crowded out by the noise and onslaught of irrelevant data.” In this section they have prepared a chart of Ranganathan’s laws and in the third column they relate the laws to digital resources. A second chart gives examples of abiding or not abiding by the third law. For example, they believe that failing to install MARC records for all electronic resources is breaking the third Ranganathan law.

[Via Library Link of the Day]

p.s.
In SJSU SLIS Libarary 204, my professor, Prof. Dowlin [who inspired me starting this Web log], stressed making connections. In fact, grades were based on how well one made connections. This article makes connections. I rate this a must read for library school students.

This is great news for librarians, historians, genealogists, and teachers. The National Endowment for Humanities and The Library of Congress are partnering in the National Digital Newspaper program to digitize newspapers from 1836 to 1922. A collection will be available on the Internet through the Library of Congress in 2006. CNN, 11/18/2004: U.S. archives offer digital look at America’s past

This story was based on NEH Chaiman Bruce Cole’s speech: National Press Club Speech (16 November 2004) A sample from a military newspaper, The Stars and Stripes is available at The American Soldiers’ Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919.