A case study investigation of academic library support for open educational resources in Scottish universities

The aim of the research was to investigate why and how Scottish university libraries support open educational resources and to assess their ability to provide support services for their development and use within higher education institutions. There has been little research on the role of academic libraries in supporting open educational resources in Scotland and previous research found that there is a lack of awareness of them in Scottish higher education institutions and few have open educational resources policies. The case study methodology therefore involved two Scottish academic libraries providing open educational resources services. The libraries’ motivation includes supporting teaching and learning and the development of educator digital skills and copyright knowledge. However, there are a number of barriers limiting the services the libraries are able to provide, particularly lack of human resources. The research confirmed the findings of previous research on the importance of institutional commitment, incentives for educator engagement, and understanding of copyright and licensing issues by educators and library staff

Copyright and digital academic library development in the UK.

Reviews the role of copyright in digital academic and research library development in the UK over the last 25 years, drawing on policy documents, legislative reviews and statutes, project documentation and programme syntheses. Finds that copyright-related issues have presented challenges for the development of digital libraries. UK copyright law has been reformed as a result of consultative reviews, but the role of high-level negotiations between stakeholder representatives and the development of model and blanket licences have arguably been more effective in supporting the development of digital libraries. Despite tensions between libraries and publishers, gradual cultural change and the roles played key players such funding councils and high-level representative groups have facilitated progress. The increasing trend towards open licensing presents new roles for libraries as well as challenges and new business opportunities for publishers. Concludes it is unclear what future UK copyright and research policy will be, but it is likely that improved access to academic resources and research will continue, the roles of libraries and publishers will continue to evolve, and new sources of tension and challenges will arise

Publishers, legal deposit and the changing publishing environment.

UK publishers have always had mixed attitudes to legal deposit. This chapter focuses on electronic legal deposit in the UK from the perspective of publishers, providing some assessment of what the impact on publishers has been in the relatively short time electronic legal deposit has been in existence, and the role of legal deposit in a dynamic digital environment

Preservation, access and intellectual property rights challenges for libraries in the digital environment

Increasingly libraries are acquiring, creating and managing information in digital form, as the electronic publishing industry continues to develop and librarians digitise their non-digital collections. There are various reasons for digitisation in libraries and archives, including improving access to collections generally, and particularly to unique, rare and fragile material. Another reason for digitising is to facilitate preservation through the creation of a surrogate and therefore reduce handling of originals. A particular example of improving access is the ability to digitise material from a variety of geographically dispersed collections and bring it together in a coherent digital resource. A recent worldwide survey (Bültmann et al 2005) of digitised resources indicated that manuscripts and images are the most frequently digitised type of material in libraries, although other types of material, including artefacts, have also been digitised. Librarians are digitising collections in individual institutions, but are also working with other libraries and knowledge institutions, such as museums. A more recent development is the partnership arrangements Google has with a number of major libraries to scan their collections, include them in “Google Book Search and, like a card catalog, show users information about the book plus a few snippets – a few sentences of their search term in context” (Google 2006)

Online copyright enforcement by Internet Service Providers

The culture of online sharing of information on the Internet extends to unauthorised sharing of copyright content, and is perceived as a major threat to copyright owners and content industries. Enforcement of existing copyright laws is difficult due to the widespread nature of unauthorised sharing. Rights holders have pursued individuals and organisations involved through existing legal channels, with limited success. They have also engaged in voluntary arrangements with Internet Service Providers to educate and, potentially punish infringers. Governments have more recently become involved in developing new legislation with similar aims. The approaches to addressing the issue have been controversial, mainly because of lack of transparency in their development and concerns about their potential impact on the rights of individuals. The approaches to addressing online copyright infringement are described. The nature of the policy making process and its impact on how legal measures are perceived are analysed. The potential impact of measures on the rights of subscribers is discussed. A key conclusion is that new measures to combat unauthorised file sharing need not, in principle, adversely affect the balance between rights, but the design and implementation of legal measures do raise concerns in terms of necessity and proportionality

Legal deposit of digital publications

Legal deposit is an obligation to deposit publications with specified depositories. The purpose of legal deposit is to preserve and provide long-term access to the national intellectual heritage. Extending legal deposit to digital publications presents many challenges for the framing of legislation, selection and acquisition of material, preservation and provision of access. The aim of this research was to: explore the potential issues related to the extension of UK legal deposit to digital publications and identify the implications for existing legal deposit arrangements. The research was based on Soft Systems Methodology. Data was gathered through two rounds of interviews with stakeholder groups, including legal deposit libraries, publishers, government and technical experts. Preservation is accepted as the main purpose of legal deposit, but there is some tension and lack of trust between publishers and legal deposit libraries on access to legal deposit collections. The new UK legal deposit law is enabling only; implementation will require further regulations that will be subject to detailed consultation and negotiation. While there has been a voluntary scheme in place for some time in the UK, the research found a lack of readiness amongst the UK legal deposit libraries. They still had to develop cooperative arrangements between themselves and publishers; policies, procedures, especially for online publications; and did not have all the necessary technical infrastructure in place. The deposit of digital publications is an extra role for legal deposit libraries and it is not clear that they will receive extra funding, as is the case in some other countries. There is currently no full-scale fully functional digital legal deposit system in the world. However, there are lessons to be learned from other legal deposit libraries and research and development work is providing partial solutions. The key issues are the need for communication and collaboration between UK legal deposit libraries and cooperation and trust between legal deposit libraries and publishers. Developments since the research was carried out demonstrate some progress in this. Without these, digital legal deposit cannot be successfully implemented in the UK. There is also a need to look at what the users require in terms to material collected and how it is preserved

Nick Moore, his information policy matrix, with a bibliometric analysis.

One of Nick Moore's contributions to library and information research and practice was the development of a matrix to be used for analysing different countries' information policies. Conceptions of information policy have changed over time, from managing and disseminating government information to the role and use of information in organisations and society more generally. Orna (2008) has provided an overview of the historical development of information policy, which became important to governments in the late 1970s, whilst Mahon (1989) reviewed developments in European information policy up to the late 1980s. Information policy became a more widely prominent topic during the 1990s, coinciding with discussions around the information age and the development of information and knowledge based societies

Right to preserve? Copyright and licensing for digital preservation project: final report

The Copyright and Licensing for Digital Preservation Project ran from September 2002 to March 2004 and was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board. The aim of the research was to investigate whether and how copyright legislation and licensed access to digital content affect the ability of libraries to provide long-term access to that content, and to suggest ways in which any problems can be overcome. The project included a review of the library, legal and related literatures. Questionnaire surveys were then used to explore the views of libraries, publishers and authors. These were supplemented by twenty in-depth, face-to-face interviews with librarians, publishers, legal experts, digital preservation experts and representatives of rights holder organisations. An invitation-only seminar was held, at which delegates discussed possible solutions to the issues identified

Open licensing for cultural heritage.

This is a book review by the author of Open Licensing for cultural heritage by G. Hamilton and F. Saunderso

Managing access to the Internet in public libraries in the UK – the findings of the MAIPLE project

Paper presented at the Annual International Conference on Library and Information Science, 4-7 August 2014, Athens, Greece. One of the key purposes of the public library is to provide access to information. In the UK, information is provided in printed formats and for the last decade via public access Internet workstations installed as part of the People’s Network initiative. Recent figures reveal that UK public libraries provide approximately 43,000 computer terminals offering users around 83,000,000 hours across more than 4,300 service points. In addition, increasing numbers of public libraries allow users to connect devices such as tablets or smart phones to the Internet via a wireless network access point (Wi-Fi). How do public library staff manage this? What about users viewing harmful or illegal content? What are the implications for a profession committed to freedom of access to information and opposition to censorship? MAIPLE, a two-year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has been investigating this issue, as little was known about how UK public libraries manage Internet content control including illegal material. MAIPLE has drawn on an extensive review of the literature, an online survey which all UK public library services (PLS) were invited to complete (39 per cent response rate) and case studies with five services (two in England, one in Scotland, one in Wales and one in Northern Ireland) to examine the ways these issues are managed and their implications for staff. This paper will explore the prevalence of tools such as filtering software, Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs), user authentication, booking software and visual monitoring by staff and consider their efficacy and desirability in the provision of public Internet access. It will consider the professional dilemmas inherent with managing content and access. Finally, it will highlight some of the more important themes emerging from the findings and their implications for practitioners and policy makers