The Georgia State e-Reserves Case: A Self-Centered Analysis

I was pretty excited to hear about the ruling in the Georgia State University e-Reserves copyright case over the weekend, A) because we'd read about it in class, and it's nice to see that class discussion has real-world importance, and B) because it might actually directly affect my job (I'm in charge of e-Reserves at my university).

Basically, GSU put a ton of copyrighted material online, unprotected by passwords, for multiple terms, and publishers were pissed. The suit was filed in 2008.

Judge Orinda Evans ruled that only 5 of the 99 alleged infringements were indeed valid--the other 94 were considered fair use. Generally, fair use is determined by the following factors:

1. The purpose of the use (commercial/educational)
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount of the material used (the greater the amount copied, the less likely it is fair use)
4. The effect of use on the potential market for or value of the work 

The Judge all but officially instated the one chapter/ten percent rule (which is already my official policy): No more than one chapter or ten percent (whichever is less) shall be copied and made available.

She also--and this part I found interesting--practically jettisoned the no-subsequent-semester rule, which GSU had supposedly been violating. Many schools (mine included) say that material can be made available for one term, but after that permission must be acquired. However, the Judge declared this policy unnecessary. I think this might have something to do with her finding that some of the alleged infringing material was never actually accessed. I'll have to consider what this means for my policy--though I don't believe any professor has ever asked for anything to be on e-reserve longer than one term.

Overall, I'm not really surprised by the ruling. Everything I've read (because, let's get real, I'm not going to read the actual 350-page document) places  the decision squarely within everything I understand fair use to be--it's perhaps even a bit more lenient.

And I'm sure the publishers are still going to be pissed, but this is definitely a W for libraries. I am all for making educational material available to the masses, and honestly I'm pretty skeptical about the benefits of copyright anyway.

If you want to read more, I recommend THIS article in the Chronicle of Higher Education and THIS blog post from Kevin Smith at Duke.

Metadata Matters!

This is a picture of the Eymard Seminary baseball team from Suffern, New York, taken sometime between 1890 and 1910. Eymard scored a run in the 12th inning to win the game.

The only reason I know this stuff (except the winning run part; that's obvious) about a photo taken over 100 years ago is metadata.

It drives me crazy when I'm at thrift stores, and I find a basket of awesome old photos but there is nothing written on the back. No names, no dates, no information about what the photo is of. I mean, part of it's fun, because you can make up your own stories about the people in the photos (what, you don't do that?), but it's mostly frustrating.

The metadata class I'm taking right now is revealing to me the importance of accurate labeling. Not only for the purpose of recall and ease of use, but for posterity. It's especially important in today's digital age, where we have photo file names like DSC012894. So not descriptive! So not helpful for finding that photo or explaining to our great-great-grandchildren what it's a photo of. I don't want to be cursed by future generations for failing to properly label and tag my files!

Another MLIS candidate in my program has a great post on her blog about personal digital preservation, including labeling your files with appropriate metadata. Check it out! It's definitely inspired me to do some work on my own files.

All this talk about metadata also makes me think about how I tag my blog posts, and how I search for things online. I'd like to just snap my fingers (I can't not link to this. I tried, and I can't.) and have everything in the whole world labeled nicely. I guess that can't happen. But I can do my part!

How do you feel about metadata? (Easily the nerdiest question ever blogged.) Do you care about labels and tags?

Legalize Pirate Libraries!

This article by Christopher Kelty made me have so many feels. I got sad, and then I got angry, and then I got sad again, and it left me just on the wrong side of hopelessness.

It talked about the shuttering of library.nu, an illegal purveyor of over 400,000 digital books with a user base comprised chiefly of the "global middle class," i.e., poor. The article profiled the typical users in this way: "Maybe they were students once, but went on to find jobs and found families. We made them in some cases - we gave them a four-year taste of the life of the mind before sending them on their way with unsupportable loans. In other cases, they made themselves, by hook or by crook." We're talking people who are hungry to learn, but lacking the megabucks necessary to compile the kind of library they'd eagerly devour.

Library.nu was meeting that need.

OK, yes, linking to illegally copied digital versions of copyrighted books is illegal. But why? This is the sharing of ideas, the transmission of information. It's giving people the means of education, the means of providing a fulfilling and enriched life. Publishers say they are "protecting" the work of authors, but are they? By restricting access to their work, I suggest that publishers are doing authors a disservice--fewer people read it, fewer people can engage with it, and fewer people can expand and build upon it.

I just finished a module on open access that included some readings about institutional repositories--where scholars and researchers submit their work into a self-archived, usually online and open, repository rather than having it published in a journal. And while there are problems with this (such as the lack of the "prestige" of publication), I really see far more advantages, both to authors and academia as a whole, as well as the wider world of curious learners.

What really sent me over the top with this article was the comparison to the pharmaceutical industry and their restriction of AIDS medications in favor of profits and "intellectual property."

ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME.

So maybe education is not life and death, but it's unarguably up there on the List of Important Things (Maslow be damned).

I find it deplorable that we live in a world in which sharing information is criminal, but restricting it is common practice.

Melville House Hybrid Books

The press release for Melville House's HybridBooks came out like six months ago, but I just discovered it today, and I'm kind of excited about it--plus it kind of relates to my post yesterday about alternative texts.

A sample page explains that "HybridBooks are a union of print and electronic media designed to provide a unique reading experience by offering additional curated material--Illuminations--which expand the world of the book through text and illustrations." The press release says "the program offers extensive ancillary digital materials, such as essays, maps, illustrations, and other primary source material" to enhance reading and encourage multidimensional interaction with the text.

The additional materials are linked by QR code in the book. It looks like just one code will take you to all of the "Illuminations." While I think it might be more meaningful to have specific material linked on the pages to which it is relevant, I'm really interested to see how it works. I'd really like to get my hands on one.

Have any of you tried a HybridBook? What did you think?

Hand-Picked Textbook Alternatives

This idea being piloted by Temple University isn't exactly new--surely every student's been in a class with a cobbled-together "reader" rather than a traditional textbook--but I think they are taking it to a new and exciting level.

Faculty are mixing online material and items from library holdings, and bringing together disparate resources in something like a course website that students can access from anywhere. It's like a super-specialized, personalized class collection that's free and weightless.

Professor Keith Quesenberry, who's taking part in the program, explained in an article on the Temple website that “It seemed like the students were more engaged and less burdened, getting to and completing assignments earlier. The textbook was this thing they hated. This removed a barrier for them.”

I really like this idea of making relevant material accessible online rather than in a textbook. So many times I've bought textbooks that the class didn't even totally use--like maybe only a few chapters. This alternative textbook idea means that all the resources are relevant and being used, and the price is minimal. I imagine that even if resources aren't free, buying access or permission for them would still be a lower cost than what students are used to paying.

It does seem like a bit more work for faculty, but I'd be very interested in putting together alt-texts as a librarian. I just love the idea of curating special material for a specific class. I'm in a collections development class right now, and I've been captivated by the idea of micro-collections and bibliographing. Plus, a project like this could really bring together faculty and librarians--a relationship that is vital, but seems to be lacking.

What do you think about alternative, specialized "textbooks"? Do you think they're more useful as complementary supplements, or could they replace outdated, expensive, and increasingly less-useful textbooks?