Although scholarship has addressed issues around serving international students in U.S. and Canadian libraries, reports on how Chinese graduate students use information in Chinese universities, especially for a particular discipline, are rare. In this study, the author interviewed 15 graduate students and researchers in a top-ranked chemistry…

Building a personal learning network (PLN) for intellectual freedom has long been an important role of a school librarian; however, in the steadily increasing onslaught of digital information that librarians face today, and in the future, the task has become mission-critical. Personal learning, it stands to reason, requires an appropriate dialogue…

The first sale doctrine says that after a copyright holder first sells a copy of his or her work, the new owner may do whatever he or she pleases with that copy (assuming that use is legal). This concept came up through common law and was eventually codified in the Copyright Act of 1976. In 2010, two cases were working their way through the U.S.…

As library collections increasingly become digital, libraries are faced with many challenges regarding the acquisition and management of electronic resources. Some of these challenges include copyright and fair use, the first-sale doctrine, licensing versus ownership, digital preservation, long-term archiving, and, most important, the issue of…

Free software isn't about cost, and it isn't about hype, it isn't about taking business away from vendors. It's about four kinds of freedom--the freedom to use the software for any purpose, the freedom to study how the software works, the freedom to modify the software to adapt it to one's needs, and the freedom to copy and share copies of the…

Copyright law is a source of a great deal of bewilderment and frustration to academic librarians. Beyond the basics of copyright protection and fair use, most librarians struggle to grasp the complexity of the law and the roadblocks it presents to access and use. This article attempts to elucidate some of those complexities by suggesting seven…

This report addresses the question of what libraries and archives are legally empowered to do to preserve and make accessible for research their holdings of unpublished pre-1972 sound recordings. The report's author, June M. Besek, is executive director of the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at Columbia Law School. Unpublished sound…

Instead of relying on national copyright law, surrounding case law, international treaties, and prevailing practice to govern information transactions for electronic information, copyright holders have turned to contracts (or licenses as they are more commonly called in the library world) as the mechanism for defining the owner, user, and uses of…

Laws governing the reproduction of works protected by copyright in various countries and current practices followed by libraries and other institutions are discussed. Reference is made to the copyright problems facing developing countries. (Author)

The task of the working party was to analyze how a scheme for the establishment of a public lending right might be devised in practical terms. It did not consider whether or not such a scheme should be introduced, nor what effect it might have on the finances of the library services or authors concerned. This report: establishes the nature of the…

This bibliography dealing with the future of libraries and librarians is divided into three parts: (1) "Trends in Education," with 17 citations, 10 of which are annotated; (2) "The New Copyright Law: How Will it Affect Library Service?," which contains 17 citations including laws and senate reports; (3) "Library Automation and Reader Services,"…

The copyright issue and its ramifications for libraries are discussed. The article is broken down into six sections: general review; full-size copying; microform materials; microform equipment; audiovision and facsimile transmission; and, publications, research and professional activities. (176 references) (SM)

The Public Lending Right (PLR) campaign began in 1951 and the details of the proposals have been changed over the years. The 1972 Working Party Report makes no recommendation but many of the facts it assembles can be used to oppose PLR in its proposed form. (5 references) (Author)

The Working Party Report on Public Lending Right confines its attention to the ways in which an operational scheme might be administered. Librarians should not be diverted from the principle, and should oppose any such scheme, which would adversely affect libraries and the book trade itself. (Author/SJ)

Examines the issues involved in Williams and Wilkins Co. v. United States in which a Court of Claims reversed the trial commissioner's decision that a library's distributing photocopied reprints of medical journal articles was copyright infringement. Argues that publishers of medical journals must be granted copyright protection against library…