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 | New Orphan Works Bills Introduced in Both House and Senate
Two years after initial attempts at legislation stalled in committee, Congress has once again introduced bills to address the problem of orphan works. Lawmakers delivered two differing versions: the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 (S. 2913) was introduced in the Senate, and the Orphan Works Act of 2008 (H.R. 5889), in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bills seek to address the use of works for which copyright owners cannot be identified or located by limiting a user's exposure to damages should an owner come forward after use has been made-provided the user undertook a "reasonably diligent" search for the owner.
Concerns with some portions of the bills persist, however, including some from libraries and higher education. Nevertheless, introduction of the legislation represents a measure of progress, Association of Research Libraries associate executive director Prue Adler told the LJ Academic Newswire. "We are delighted that the House and Senate have introduced orphan works bills and look forward to working with them," Adler said. But contrary to what's been reported in other media outlets, "ARL," Adler stressed "has not endorsed the legislation."
Adler said the Senate version of the bill was the "cleaner" of the two, and that ARL was busily preparing to submit its concerns and comments to Senate staffers by tomorrow. The Senate bill is set to be "fast-tracked" and could move to the mark-up stage very soon, as early as next week, Adler suggested.
Currently, the House bill is more problematic, creating significant burdens for both owners and potential users. For example, it would mandate a registry, to be created and held by an outside private party that would have to be certified by the copyright office. This makes the law not only dependent upon users searching this database (and documenting this search) before making use of a work, but also upon copyright owners populating the database-and paying fees to do so. As it stands, the House legislation, Adler noted, simply does not provide enough of "a comfort level" for users. Nevertheless, she said she was happy to have a bill and looked forward to working with other stakeholder to fashion an agreeable law.
On her blog, University of Texas's Georgia Harper was less sanguine about the House version. "I think the bill has already been poisoned. DOA. Too late even for last rites," she wrote. Harper posited that the House version is so burdensome that it will do little or nothing to help those creators seeking to make use of orphan works. "The bill seems intentionally designed to discourage use," she writes. "Basically, the House bill appears to take the position that there is likely to be an owner who will turn up, and all the proof that you tried your best to find them has to be assembled, certified, and all the groundwork for the impending litigation laid ahead of time."
In addition, the House version, she noted, gives copyright industries an astounding edge: the right to further "erect barriers" by defining a "best practices" primer that the Copyright Office will post and that "users must follow to get the benefit of using a work that, contrary to rampant fears, no one likely exists who cares about or would object to its use."
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ILL Goes Green in an Iowa University Town
The Ames Public Library (APL), IA, and the Iowa State University (ISU) Library are only about two miles apart, but until recently they exchanged interlibrary loan (ILL) materials using the U.S. Postal Service, which required packages to be routed via Des Moines, 31 miles away. Beginning, last October, the two libraries decided to lower their carbon footprint with a local company called Bikes at Work, a bicycle delivery service that builds its own trailers.
Wayne A. Pedersen, head of acquisitions and ILL/document delivery at the ISU Library, came up with the idea. "I was aware of the company and felt we needed some changes in the way we handled our ILL service," Pedersen said. He reported that a total of 144 items-including books, CDs, and DVDs-have been borrowed by ISU from APL, with 13 borrowed by APL from ISU. While those numbers may seem modest, ISU has actually borrowed items at more than double the previous clip, while delivery speed has been cut by about a third, from 4.63 days to 3.13 days. Moreover, the cost per item is just 48 cents, while the average parcel-not always one item-last year was $2.48.
ISU users can order ASU materials via ILL by going to OCLC, bypassing any ISU paperwork. Also, Pedersen noted, the courier service now has enabled APL to loan CDs and DVDs to the ISU Library. Jim Gregory of Bikes at Work explained that the contract is indeed profitable. "The libraries are only a couple of miles apart, so we can make a round trip between them quickly. Also, we happen to have a mail run from a different office on campus to the local post office that we run concurrently with the library book delivery. The post office happens to be only a block from the public library, so the two runs fit together well."
"Even without the extra mail run, however, the library book delivery would still be profitable for us," he noted. And there's one more benefit-it's that much easier for the couriers to return their own books.
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| SPARC, Science Commons Release Institutional OA Guide
The open access iron is hot-and SPARC is striking. This week, the organization, in partnership with Science Commons, released a new white paper entitled Open Doors and Open Minds: What Faculty Authors Can Do To Ensure Open Access To Their Work Through Their Institution, designed to assist institutions in "adopting policies that ensure the widest practical exposure for scholarly works produced."
Co-authored by SPARC and Science Commons, the new white paper details "the motivations" behind the recently passed Harvard open access policy, as well as offering a "concise explanation of U.S. Copyright Law and how it relates to the scholarly publishing process, and makes specific suggestions for faculty and advocates to pursue a campus-wide policy." The guide features "a plan of action, a series of institutional license options, and a 10-point list of actions for realizing a policy and adopting the right University License to meet the institution's particular needs.
Last week, SPARC officials announced that the annual SPARC/ACRL forum, to be held during the 2008 American Library Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA, would examine Harvard University's recent faculty open access mandate.
"As more universities move to increase the reach of their faculty's work, it's important that faculty members have a clear understanding of the key issues involved," said John Wilbanks, VP of science at Creative Commons, calling the white paper "a foundational document for universities and faculty to use as they move into the new world of Open Access scholarly works." The paper is available on the web sites of both SPARC and Science Commons.
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| Law Professors Blast EPA Plan, Call for "Full" Restoration of Libraries
A letter signed by 94 Law school professors from across the country this week sharply criticized the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), saying its plan to reopen its libraries "fails to fully restore services, guarantee full public access or ensure professional librarian control over valuable collections." The April 26, 2008 letter, expressed "profound disappointment" in the recent EPA report on restoration of library services. "EPA's report is woefully lacking in detail, unresponsive to many of the criticisms that were appropriately included in GAO's February, 2008 reports on the Agency's library mismanagement, and entirely devoid of a needed commitment to restore EPA's shuttered libraries to the levels of service provided to the public and EPA's staff prior to their closure," read the letter.
EPA had eliminated access to agency libraries in 23 states, shut technical collections, and reduced hours and access in other libraries. This December, however, Congress ordered EPA to reopen closed libraries. In its March report, however, the agency indicated that it would complete a partial restoration by this October.
The letter from law professors, however, echoes lingering concerns of librarians as to the damage already done by the agency's dismantling, as well as the agency's commitment to restoring service. In testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight in March, Jim Rettig, president-elect of the American Library Association (ALA) and university librarian at the University of Richmond, suggested the agency do much better to understand and respond to the end users' needs. "Unfortunately, there continues to be a lot that we don't know," Rettig testified. "We remain concerned that years of research and studies about the environment may be lost forever."
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Library Journal Academic Newswire
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