LICENSES AND CONTRACTS
Interlibrary Loans ( Alid)
Traditional interlibrary loan copying agreements are based on the concept of fair use and that section of the copyright law, § 108 (United States Copyright Office, 1996). Libraries have a special allowance to conduct the business of lending and sending articles and books to each other. However, fair use issues have become more complex in the digital world. With the increased use of databases, which only allow access not ownership, contract law supersedes copyright and fair use. The majority of digital works are licensed and the permissions for distribution are dependent upon the language of the contract. Harper (2001) states that contractual agreements may replace specific provisions of copyright law as the immediate source of authority to archive, use, and distribute digital works. This also includes materials in library purchased databases. Therefore, it is extremely important to know what the terms are in the contracts for the databases ‘housed’ in one’s library before using them for interlibrary loan, electronic reserves, or any other purpose that might have legal ramifications. With the advent of electronic access, licensing and contracting issues have become more complex. Electronic subscriptions do not follow the traditional lending agreements. For example, subscribing Library A may or may not be able to lend a document found in electronic journal XYZ to borrowing Library B if Library B does not subscribe to print journal XYZ. Some vendors place no such
74 Burke restrictions on the use of the articles found in their journals or databases. When libraries or consortia negotiate these contracts, they should include interlibrary allowances. To do otherwise makes these contracts problematic in the context of a library’s interlibrary loan use.
It is difficult for library staff to keep current with licensing restrictions. Vendors drop and add titles with little or no notice. The fluidity of these licensing changes can present challenges to any interlibrary loan department trying to remain compliant with contractual restrictions. Therefore, maintaining current contacts with vendors and those individuals who negotiate the contracts is crucial to keep updates and changes current.
Electronic Reserves (Alid)
There is still much debate over the intellectual property issues and the concept of fair use in electronic reserves. The Electronic Reserves Drafting Sub-group of participants in the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) established fair use guidelines for electronic reserve systems in 1994. However, publishers are still concerned about indiscriminant dissemination of materials. With the turmoil that surrounded the Napster case (Kemp, 2000), both publishers and librarians have become even more sensitive to the issues of copyright and intellectual property, particularly in the use of non-print formats. With the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998, there were major changes in the copyright law, taking copyright issues into the digital age. The DCMA was a complicated law with major impact on the library community (Lutzker, 1999). It crippled the use of electronic reserves in distance education, since it forbade the transmission of digitized materials. However, Senate Bill 487, “The Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization Act” to amend Chapter 1 of Title 17, U.S. Code, relates to the
exemption of certain performances or displays for educational purposes. Protecting digitized copyrighted works from infringement is only part of the problem. The major issue is how to best protect the transmitted materials. One proposed methodology encompasses the digital watermark, fingerprint, or digital signatures, which provide copyright protection (Shaw, 1999). Until the passage of such legislation, electronic reserves for non-print materials cannot be readily available off-campus, and distance learning suffers.
DISTANCE LEARNING (Alid)
Shea & Boser (2001) stated that, at the turn of the century, approximately 70 percent of American universities had offered at least one course online. They predict that by 2005, nearly all the universities in America will offer an online course. Access Services in the 21st Century 75 Although educational institutions create courses and programs for distance learners, they often forget the support component that students and faculty consider critical. Students involved in distance education courses are unlikely to walk into the sponsoring institution’s library for instruction on how to use the resources or how to use electronic reserves and interlibrary loan. To properly support distance education students, remote access to the library is essential. The virtual classroom needs not only a virtual library but also access to the paper resources. The library must be able to deliver materials to students, assist them in finding alternate sources for physical resources, and authenticate and verify student information. This is especially important for accessing databases that are limited to currently enrolled students that often come under the auspices of the library. Students, whether distance learners or local, need to communicate with the library to make sure that they have computer access. Help desks, chat rooms, email programs, live reference, and enhanced online catalogs, all contribute to the support of the distance learning programs. In addition, many programs request reciprocal borrowing privileges for their students located far from the originating campus. Libraries are establishing mail services to their distance learning students, and when that is not possible, direct students to local libraries to take advantage of the interlibrary loan system. For a more in-depth discussion on distance learning, see Chapter 10 in this volume.
CONCLUSION ( Alid)
Libraries must provide the services to their patrons while balancing budgets, space, and user needs. The virtual and the physical library have become one, and it is important that the library make the combination of these two units seamless. The future of electronic reserves and interlibrary loan is still entangled with copyright and intellectual property issues. Copyright notices are standard fare on all electronic materials stating access restrictions. Further, if payments are necessary to access specific resources, it is incumbent upon the library to ensure that policies are in place to ensure payments.
FUTURE TRENDS ( Alid)
Two critical issues remain unresolved in access services in this new century. First, with spiraling subscription and increasing material costs, how will academic libraries create a more effective method of providing information to their faculties and researchers? A closer relationship between collection development librarians and the Interlibrary Loan department is essential. Collection development decisions
TEAMFLY
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that affect the information needs of researchers require ILL to supply the missing resources quickly. Armed with usage studies from interlibrary loan and electronic reserve software applications and input from other departments, collection management can be more precise in obtaining important resources with dwindling funds. The second challenge focuses on accountability for library support for students in the era of distance learning. For example, when a student is enrolled in a distance learning course, which library is responsible for providing library services – the geographically closest library or the one affiliated with the educational institution offering the distance learning course? It is important to take these factors into account when developing service policies for those distance learners who are far from their ‘home’ institutions but still require services.
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