Pathways to open access : the story of an institutional repository and how we built it.

The central purpose of an institutional repository (IR) is providing open access to scholarship. That scholarship originates primarily through the work of faculty and students at research institutions, leading research libraries to embrace IRs and the scholarly communication movement. IRs typically include student theses and dissertations and faculty publications but sometimes extend far beyond to institutional records and documents. Launching an IR requires significant collaborative work across disparate specialties and institutional structures to establish policies, workflows, configure metadata and technology for retrieval, and fashion outreach and ongoing support to the administrators and ultimately provide mediated support to the scholars who produce the scholarship. The University of Louisville recently launched ThinkIR (http://ir.library.louisville.edu) by building on a foundation of a decade’s work with theses and dissertations (ETDs) through Technical Services. UofL is now growing ThinkIR by leveraging the talents of other library faculty and staff with legal, outreach, archival, technical, and administrative skills not only to effectively manage those requirements but also to reflect the needs and skills of the seemingly disparate specialties, fostering a broader understanding of the IR within the Libraries and UofL community. IRs by history and existence embody the changing roles of academic libraries and allow scholars to broadly share and successfully manage their long term interests in their scholarship. This presentation will explore those themes and address how, led by a cross-unit Scholarly Communication and Data Management Team, we have spanned past practices, evolving best practices, and the unique needs of our campus to collaboratively build ThinkIR

Copyright and Publication Agreements: Who Owns Your Work?

Presentation for the 2010 Open Access Symposium discussing ownership as interpreted by copyright and publication agreements

Fair Use Checklist

Ball State University-branded version of Fair Use Checklist. Designed by Nick Havranek; original checklist by Kenneth D. Crews and Dwayne Buttler

A Tribute to Fritz Dolak, Copyright Librarian of Ball State University

The community of copyright professionals lost a champion recently, with the passing of Frank J. (“Fritz”) Dolak on July 14, 2021. Fritz was the copyright librarian at Ball State University, and he was known nationally for the series of annual copyright conferences he organized and led in Indiana, and for his leadership in addressing the use of copyrighted works for the enhancement of distance education. He came to copyright after years of music, military service, and more. A hallmark of his life was bringing clarity and humor to serious challenges, starting with his family name. He had a simple family name that was routinely mispronounced. As Fritz would tell anyone who would listen, “The name is ‘Doo-Lok,’ as in ‘Do Lock the Door.’” Fritz was a professional colleague to many editors and contributors to JCEL. Three of his copyright colleagues—Dwayne K. Buttler, Kenneth D. Crews, and Donna L. Ferullo—worked with him for many years, and they share memories of Dr. Fritz Dolak and his influence and leadership. The story of Fritz Dolak is a story of kindness, generosity, and inspiration