Digitization Suit at Cornell

An alumnus of Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, has sued the university over a decades-old article now available in the university library's digital collections—and searchable on the Internet. According to the Cornell Daily Sun, Kevin Vanginderen, a Cornell graduate and now a lawyer in California, filed a $1 million suit against the university in San Diego County Superior Court in October 2007, claiming libel.

In court papers, Vanginderen claimed the trouble began when he googled his name and found that back issues of the Cornell Chronicle, owned by the university's press office, had been digitally archived in the library and were now searchable online—including an article about his involvement in campus thefts. The Daily Sun reported that after Vanginderen's requests to have the article removed went unheeded, he filed suit, citing “the difference between having the article sit in the basement of a dusty library and being posted on the front door of the library.” Cornell, meanwhile, counters that the article is not defamatory and that the statute of limitations for defamation has run out because the article was published 24 years ago—and the online Chronicle archive, scans of the original editions, does not constitute republication.

The case, however, hints at deeper issues. “I think it will not slow the pace of digitization,” Lolly Gasaway, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of law at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, told LJ. “But libraries and other agencies that publish digital information may find themselves having to deal with requests to expunge certain records. My guess is that libraries won't do this in advance but only in response to a particular request.”