Copyright in archival materials digitization

Dryden, Jean. "Copyright issues in the selection of archival material for internet access." Archival Science 8(2) 2008, at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/d68378548316j886/
This article reports the findings of a study that investigated how copyright affects what items Canadian archival repositories select for digitization and online access. The study found that Canadian repositories select items that are perceived to incur little risk of copyright infringement (because the copyright has expired or because the repository owns the copyright), or those that require few or no resources to investigate copyright status or obtain copyright authorizations. The findings suggest that repositories’ selection decisions are more restrictive than the law requires.

New WorldCat Record Use Policy

OCLC Board of Trustees convenes Council to study and develop new WorldCat Record Use Policy

DUBLIN, OHIO, USA, 14 September 2009

The OCLC Board of Trustees has convened a Record Use Policy Council, which will draw upon the fundamental values of the OCLC cooperative and engage with the global library community to develop the next generation of the WorldCat Record Use Policy. The intent is to recommend to the OCLC Board of Trustees a new policy that is aligned with the present and future information landscape. The new policy will replace the Guidelines for Use and Transfer of OCLC Derived Records that was developed in 1987.

The formation of this council was one of the recommendations contained in the final report <www.oclc.org/us/en/worldcat/catalog/FinalReport_ReviewBoard.pdf> of the OCLC Review Board on the Principles of Shared Data Creation and Stewardship formed in January 2009 to represent the membership and inform OCLC on best practices for sharing library data.

The Policy Council is also charged with carrying out the other recommendations contained in the final report, including development of a policy to enable expanding the role and value of WorldCat in the broad information ecosystem.

NISO webinar on Bibliographic Control Alphabet Soup: AACR to RDA and Evolution of MARC

Registration is open for NISO's October webinar on Bibliographic Control Alphabet Soup: AACR to RDA and Evolution of MARC, to be held on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 from 1:00 - 2:30 p.m. (Eastern Time).

Librarians, ILS vendors, and commercial cataloging service providers--as well as a wide variety of related service providers--all know that the proverbial, heavily acronym-spiced "bibliographic control alphabet soup" involves the intelligent and well informed use of many ingredients. Chief in these are constantly evolving standards, combined with more than a sprinkling of creativity and insight. Three expert metadata chefs will analyze and discuss specific alphabetic ingredients already in use or soon to be implemented in the bib control kitchen.

Diane Hillmann (Director of Metadata Initiatives, Information Institute of Syracuse) will provide an overview of RDA Elements and Vocabularies: a Step Forward from MARC. RDA elements and vocabularies represent the distillation of library descriptive knowledge, optimized for use within an environment that speaks XML, RDF, and linked data, and expressed in an FRBR-aware manner.

Barbara Tillett (Chief, Policy and Standards Division, Library of Congress) will review There to Here to There -- AACR2 and RDA. Learn how what started as AACR3 evolved into an entirely new approach with a new name. 

William Moen (Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Sciences, University of North Texas) will discuss results from the IMLS-sponsored research project: Data-driven Evidence for Core MARC Records. The project team examined 56 million WorldCat bibliographic records and analyzed patterns of use by catalogers of available fields/subfields.

For more information and to register, visit the event webpage: (http://www.niso.org/news/events/2009/bibcontrol09). Registration is per site (access for one computer) and includes access to the online recorded archive of the webinar. NISO and NASIG members receive a discounted member rate. A student discount is also available. Can't make it on the 14th? Register and gain access to the recorded archive for one year. 

This message was cross-posted.

Cynthia Hodgson

NISO Technical Editor Consultant

National Information Standards Organization

Email: chodgson@niso.org

Phone: 301-654-2512

 (AUTOCAT)

NISO Newsline - September 2009

NISO Newsline - September 2009

http://www.niso.org/publications/newsline/2009/newslinesept09.html

As September begins—and with it the fall—the air is always full of a buzz about return to work after holiday breaks, new projects that are about to get underway, what old things the incoming college freshmen never experienced, and the cool gadgets that they need to survive the new year in style. Obviously, some of this is light-hearted, but the new work projects are quite serious.

NISO is starting the fall with the formation of two new working groups. NISO Voting Members have just approved the proposals and initiation of new work items on physical delivery of library materials and on journal markup in XML. More information about both initiatives and how you can get involved is below. With these two projects, NISO has a total of eight development projects underway for standards or best practices, in addition to the ongoing maintenance and support activities for many of our published standards.

Among the projects outside of NISO that are picking up speed is the Google Book project and the related legal settlement. Earlier this year in Newsline, I talked briefly about the settlement notice that NISO had received as one of the parties to the settlement. Things are now coming to a head regarding this settlement. The deadline for authors and publishers to opt-out of the settlement was extended to September 4, 2009, with a "fairness hearing" to be held on October 7. Despite some support from the publishing community, the library community and others, there remains considerable opposition to the settlement. One open question is whether the settlement will move forward.

In related news, Google announced in August that it would be making all of its public domain scanned book files available in the EPUB format and available for download onto EPUB compatible readers. (See the story below.) EPUB was one of the topics discussed during the NISO/BISG Forum held this summer as well as the webinar on e-books. You can view online a video of the presentation that Michael Smith, Executive Director of the International Digital Publishing Forum, gave during that meeting .

Finally, NISO is planning another busy fall of educational events. On the heels of our successful e-books forum, NISO will be revisiting the issues surrounding licensing with a two-part webinar this month. And early next month, a tremendous group of industry leaders will gather for a two day forum in Boston on Library Resource Management Systems. These vital components to library management are undergoing significant transformation and we will be exploring the use and application of these systems from a variety of perspectives. Despite the current budgetary pressures, I hope you can join us in Boston, as few topics will have as lasting an impact as the systems upon which your institutions rely.

Todd Carpenter

Managing Director

(NISO website)