Copyright First Responders: Decentralized Expertise, Cultural Institutions, and Risk

Today librarians and other information professionals regularly intersect with intellectual property law. As our work increasingly encompasses copyright-intensive programs and projects (e.g., digitization, scholarly publishing, open access, streaming media, MOOCs, and more), questions about fair use, public domain, and copyright law invariably emerge. Libraries occupy a liminal space, they both serve knowledge creation and information access and enjoy special privileges under copyright law. Unfortunately, comprehensive copyright training is still not a pillar of LIS programs,1 and while there are seminal resources to look to and professional development opportunities to explore (e.g., MOOCs, copyright bootcamps, or one-offs at conferences), this sort of support may feel ephemeral or once removed. In response, Copyright First Responders (CFR) training is designed to create a network of local copyright experts who can support each other in efforts to provide thoughtful and responsive copyright support to their community. Over the last six years, the CFR program has extended from its origins at Harvard Library to Alaska, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington. Does training copyright experts reasonably reduce risk for an institution? How does the CFR curriculum fill a well-documented gap in information professional training and help drive the learning experiences that become the backbone of local services? How does the CFR’s decentralized hub-and-spoke model best serve the interest of these participating institutions? Here we will explore the structure underpinning the CFR program and share how it aims to reduce risk and provide mission-critical expertise in libraries and archives

Design Thinking Repository Services: ​ Lessons Learned from UAlbany’s COVID-19 and Minority Health Disparities in NYS Collection and Scholars Archive

In April 2020, the University at Albany was commissioned to study the factors causing disproportionate harm from COVID-19 for New York Latinx and Black individuals. Thirty-five interdisciplinary UAlbany Engaged Researchers partnered with colleagues and community organizations to research solutions to these disparities. The UAlbany Libraries’ Scholarly Communication Team recognized the opportunity to collect, preserve, and distribute this Minority Health Disparities (MHD) project’s assets from the University’s repository, Scholars Archive. Following early conversations with the project lead, an expert in digital government, the author successfully demonstrated the repository’s value. With her support, and with a design thinking approach, the authors worked collaboratively to build a robust project collection that would better serve the scholars, their research, and the communities they were aiming to reach. With lessons learned from this project, the Scholarly Communication Team is looking to more deeply partner with other departments working to support the University’s research enterprise. This project has served as a launching point for further weaving the repository, and associated services, into the fabric of UAlbany’s research activities and related community engagement. The authors will share the MHD project story as one approach to offering solutions in a time of great need and change

Authors Alliance Partner Program (A2P2) [Product Review]

The Authors Alliance Partner Program (A2P2; https://www.authorsalliance.org/a2p2/) is a recent addition to the educational content from the Authors Alliance. This nonprofit advocacy organization aims “to advance the interests of authors who want to serve the public good by sharing their creations broadly.” And this new initiative provides prêt-à-porter instructional material with the express purpose of supporting the scaling of rights–related programming—a goal that distinguishes A2P2 from other well-established and deeply valuable copyright-focused resources (Authors Alliance, 2020). While copyright touches nearly all we do in libraries, outreach in this area can often fall to scholarly communication or copyright librarians. As Schmidt (2019) notes, “providing copyright information services in the library has become part of the standard operations of academic libraries in the U.S.” We must, consequently, train ourselves up and stay current on copyright issues, as well as instruct our peers and our communities on copyright- and author rights–related concerns (Reeves, 2015; Norris, Tierney, & Dubach, 2019; Secker, Morrison, & Nilsson, 2019). We need to build resources on topics that are nuanced, evolving, and carry risk. These efforts take time, care, and confidence. For professionals who may well have varied and competing job responsibilities, time and confidence certainly may be at a premium (Charbonneau & Priehs, 2014)

A Research Data Services FAIRytale

Whether for assignments or research, the faculty, staff, and students at all academic institutions will work with data. Some patrons seek assistance finding open data for their projects, while others would like lessons in data analysis or visualization. Data sharing is increasingly required by journals or funding agencies, and researchers may find this challenging while also navigating Data Use Agreements, confidentiality concerns, data documentation, locating a suitable repository, and more. Furthermore, most funding agencies require a data management plan be included in grant proposals to ensure that researchers are prepared to follow best practices regarding the collection, storage, security, and sharing of their data. Therefore, data literacy education and research data services are essential. Unfortunately, research data services are frequently decentralized at academic institutions, with services being offered by many departments who don’t always collaborate on outreach. Research reproducibility and ethics, as embodied in the FAIR principles for data sharing, align with libraries’ values, making them a natural home for data support and services. In the last several years, our Libraries have made progress with outreach to campus departments involved in aspects of data literacy and management, resulting in a coordinated Data Services group with representatives from those departments led by librarians. In this session, we will discuss the role of Data Services as a larger part of the institution’s Research Data Management agenda, highlight some of our accomplishments, admit some of our challenges, and share some of our near-term next steps and big picture goals

Reflections on Moving on and Scaling Up: Adapting Past Experience to Emerging Scholarly Communication Programs

Scholarly communication librarianship is always evolving. It is inherently malleable and context-dependent. Relevant skills can be challenging to learn in most LIS programs. As a result, the experiences that shaped our early careers in scholarly communication were essential. Time at institutions with well-resourced, well-established, and highly visible scholarly communication programs, at MIT, Harvard, and the University of Michigan, showed us what was possible with a team working toward shared goals: where to look for opportunities, how to engage in strategic decision-making, when to keep nudging, and when to back-burner an effort. An interesting shift we have each navigated is what happens when you move from where this sort of work is woven into an institution’s structure and culture to somewhere that is just beginning to build a scholarly communication program. Gaining experience in a well-established program and then having the opportunity to build a new program elsewhere seems to be a common juncture in many careers. Interestingly, the challenges we have faced and continue to navigate have striking parallels, despite the differences in our institutions and roles. Our discussion here offers what we hope are some practical takeaways distilled from our collective experiences

The Fifty State Library Laws Survey

During Midwinter 2016 in Boston, a working group of library organizations met to discuss possible joint projects to benefit the library industry. One foundational project that was identified was to help public libraries better understand what revenue models are available in state and local tax codes. As an industry we lack comprehensive current insights into the legal framework under which libraries can set a tax rates. COSLA, the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, and EveryLibrary volunteered to conduct a state-by-state survey of library laws covering the various modes of governance and authority to tax exercised by public libraries as either independent districts or within a municipal structure. Our colleague and EveryLibrary Advisor Kyle Courtney from Harvard Libraries graciously lent his research team to aid in the compilation of this narrative survey of state library laws. We expect that an open data set and a data visualization tool will be forthcoming in 2017 to be hosted on the COSLA website. We expect the results to have many uses across library organizations and for library planning

Further Readings and Materials

These readings are suggested materials for increased professional reading. Some materials may be openly licensed and others may only be available for W23 through fair use through OSF. Note that specific materials are not licensed under the CCBY 4.0 license and are fair use

Class Materials, All Sessions

Module for Readings. Suggested: During FSCI. Further Readings: general recommendations. Bibliography: All listings. Note: Not all readings or materials are licensed as CCBY. Items may be Fair Use for Course participants only. Questions about re-use should be directed to Instructors