[D]ue to recent legislation and court decisions, libraries have been forced to take steps which restrict, and sometimes monitor, the information available to library patrons via the Internet. As a result, fewer and fewer public libraries in the United States are allowed to offer free and equal access to information to their patrons. State and federal legislation as well as bureaucratic procedural decisions have firmly entrenched the perpetuation of the Digital Divide as the great un-sung reality of public library services in the United States today. Instead of hanging their heads in shame at these developments in librarianship, some librarians continue to deceive their patrons and to applaud these reprehensible decisions. The purpose of this web site is to provide everyone interested in these developments with information about such things as the Patriot Act and CIPA and the implications they have for services to library patrons.
Category: access
DoJ asks for destruction of more repository docs
There’s been a memo sent by the Department of Justice to depository libraries calling for the destruction of more documents. Harbinger of doom or just housecleaning of materials freely available elsewhere?
the new mantra “one time use”
Librarians, repeat after me “one time use, one time use” More on fair use from Eli. [copyfight]
the chilling effect of librarians
One of the interesting side effects of bad policy like the USA PATRIOT Act and counterintuitive copyright laws, just to name a few, is that people have a tendency to be self-policing in the absence of any real hard facts on how the laws are implemented, “fair use” laws in particular. Oftentimes people, in the absence of solid legal counsel, will be over-cautionary just to avoid being on the receiving end of a lawsuit. Librarians need to make sure that they are not being cowed by nebulous copyright boogeymen and instead advocating for fair use rights for their collections and for their patrons. That’s what access is all about. So says the MLA, the other MLA, AALL and many more.
Section 504(c)(2) of the Copyright Act provides special protection to nonprofit libraries, educational institutions and their employees. When we act in good faith, reasonably believing that our actions are fair use, in the unlikely event we are actually sued over a use, we will not have to pay statutory damages even if a court finds that we were wrong. This demonstrates Congressional acknowledgement of the importance of fair use and the importance of our using it!
access should be on your MIND before the building project, not after
Seattle Public’s new building has some serious accessibility flaws, say disabled users. While some of these concerns are stylistic, some are quite serious and should have been thought about before the design was finalized. People with disabilities were invited to give their input about the design, but felt that it was ignored. SPL says it is willing to make changes. Similarly today ALA discussed making the ALA web site more friendly to the visually disabled stating [on the Council list] “[T]he Web Advisory Committee and ASCLA are currently working with ITTS on a priority list for implementing accessibility on an application by application basis.” Wouldn’t it have been nicer — and cheaper — if they had made accesibility a priority before they built the site?