Few subjects spark more disagreement and confusion than copyright. The authors of the 2007 report "The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media Literacy" coined the term "hyper-comply" to describe how many information professionals respond to copyright. According to the study by American University's Center for Social Media, educators often…

In light of a decision by members of Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences to make access to their scholarly papers free, advocates of open access celebrated, but some publishers expressed concern. Members of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted unanimously to provide the university with copies of their published articles and…

The growth of open access publishing, the development of institutional repositories, and the availability of millions of digitized monographs and journals are rapidly changing scholarly communication. This case study looks at the current and possible uses of these tools by Michigan's three largest universities: Michigan State University, the…

Reviews copyright legislation and its impact since 1998 from the perspective of education professionals affected primarily as intellectual property users. Offers pertinent historical and philosophical context and stresses the importance of balance between intellectual property ownership and its fair and other exceptional uses. (Author/LRW)

Prepared at the request of the American Library Association by its attorneys, this article discusses federal copyright law as it pertains to musical performances in libraries. Guidelines are presented for determining whether a license from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) or any other performing rights…

Discusses the "fair use" section of the copyright law that allows teachers to use specific types of materials under certain conditions without obtaining permission from the copyright holders and the impact that the advances in technology have had on the uses and abuses of copyrighted materials. (JRH)

The edited transcript of the Copyright Panel at the 9th Information Retrieval Colloquium is presented. In addition to the panel presentation and audience discussion, this issue carries, as appendix material, some of the documents which sparked much of the current copyright debate. (Author/NH)

In this article, the author discusses the issues surrounding the production of lecture videos by professors and administrators which are free to the world. Professors across the country are now wrestling with this issue. More and more colleges have installed microphones or cameras in lecture halls and bought easy-to-use software to get lecture…

"ARL" is the bimonthly report on research library issues and actions from ARL (Association of Research Libraries), CNI (Coalition of Networked Information), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). "ARL" reports on current issues of interest to academic and research library administrators, staff, and users; higher…

On April 15, 2008, a lawsuit was filed against Georgia State University by Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Sage, supported by the American University Presses (AAP). The complaint asserted ""pervasive, flagrant, and ongoing" unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials...through its electronic course…

Book publishers are stepping up efforts to stop college students from downloading illegal copies of textbooks online. One Web site, Textbook Torrents, promises more than 5,000 textbooks for download in PDF format, complete with the original books' layouts and full-color illustrations. Users must simply set up a free account and download a free…

As new technologies emerge on campuses, how can colleges avoid legal land mines? What are the areas of greatest risk, and how should higher-education leaders deal with them? In this article, three experts offered their advice at the Technology Forum: Beth Cate, associate general counsel at Indiana University, on data privacy and security; Steven…

School library websites enhance and explain the services provided by the library. Most schools have a library website. Jurkowski (2004) reviewed thirty-four school library websites and ranked the most common features: website links, databases, policies, Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC), and websites by subject. These features give patrons a…

Selective archiving of Web sites in Australia has been under way since 1996. This approach has seen carefully selected sites preserved after site owners granted permission. The labor-intensive nature of this process means only a small number of sites can ever be acquired in this manner. An alternate approach is an automated…

Product development is the set of activities starting with the perception of a market need and ending in the production and sale of a new product satisfying that need. Broadly speaking, it is a process that should follow a structured methodology, if a certain level of effectiveness and efficacy is envisaged. In the Portuguese industrial…