ARL Promotes Copyright Awareness ARL has launched an initiative to promote copyright awareness within North American higher education and research communities. Joining ARL in the initial step of this initiative is the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), an organization of 53 scholarly societies. In an open letter, the leadership of ARL and ACLS call on colleagues throughout the scholarly community to come together to revisit the goals and purposes of copyright and "contribute to efforts that seek an understanding of copyright in an electronic environment." The letter follows. Association of Research Libraries American Council of Learned Societies August 3, 1995 Dear Colleagues: This letter is to call to your attention a growing number of developments that could significantly affect copyright law. As copyright is a key public policy that sparks the creation and sharing of knowledge, we believe it is important for more members of the scholarly community to be aware of these developments and engaged in shaping the outcomes. Giving urgency to our request is the promise of legislative reform in the United States to reassure the recently merged "info-tainment industry" that their intellectual property is protected when it is made available over a network. In the rush to identify ways to make these reassurances, there is the potential that educational and scholarly interests will be jeopardized. We call on you to contribute to explorations about how the letter and spirit of the copyright law, that has served all stakeholders well in the print environment, can translate into applications in an electronic, networked environment. Pressure to pursue clarification of copyright compliance also comes from within the educational and non-profit communities. Experiences in the development of digital libraries and with innovative applications of technology for teaching and scholarly inquiry have surfaced an array of questions about what does and does not constitute compliance with the copyright law. The American Council of Learned Societies and the Association of Research Libraries are committed to pursue strategies that encourage thoughtful responses to these questions. A central element of our respective strategies is to raise the visibility of the issue within our communities and to encourage discussion of the purpose of copyright, as well as of policies and practices that support responsible compliance with the law. The publication Copyright, Public Policy, and the Scholarly Community presents five perspectives about the viability of the copyright law in an electronic, networked environment. We recommend it as a sampler of the range of views that has emerged even within our own community. Published by ARL, the booklet contains papers from: a university librarian, a political scientist speaking on behalf of scholarly societies, a director of a large scholarly society with an active publishing program, and two lawyers each engaged in shaping workable policies and practices for managing university use of copyrighted works. The booklet is a resource modest in size but ambitious in intent: to illustrate the nature of discussions ongoing and to urge your participation in what may lead to public policy decisions that redefine the very nature of scholarly communication. Lawful uses of copyrighted materials in the electronic environment will be shaped by new guidelines, by legislation, by litigation, and by the tenacity of our institutions to influence alternatives to copyright such as licenses or other forms of contracts. We urge you to initiate or join discussions among colleagues within your institution, and within your professional or scholarly society, and to contribute to efforts that arrive at an understanding of copyright that will advance scholarly communication, higher education, and free inquiry in a networked environment. Sincerely, Duane E. Webster Executive Director Association of Research Libraries Stanley N. Katz President American Council of Learned Societies # # # Resources for Copyright Discussion * Copyright, Public Policy, and the Scholarly Community was prepared as a resource to stimulate discussions within educational institutions and scholarly societies. Edited by Michael Matthews and Patricia Brennan, it is available from ARL Publications Dept. (arlhq@cni.org). For orders in the U.S. and Canada, the book is $7.00 each when purchasing one to four copies, $5.00 each when purchasing five to nine copies, and $4.00 each when purchasing ten or more copies. International orders are $12.00 each. ARL maintains a World Wide Web server (http://arl.cni.org/scomm/copyright/copyright.html) and gopher server (arl.cni.org) with a selection of copyright resources and links to other servers. The Coalition for Networked Information sponsors a public listserve where matters of copyright are thoroughly aired. To subscribe to CNI-Copyright, send an email to listproc@cni.org leaving the subject line blank. Your message should read: subscribe cni- copyright Copyright Awareness Leadership Workshop In a related development, ARL announced a Copyright Awareness Leadership Workshop for directors and librarians in academic and research institutions. Information concerning the workshop is posted to the ARL Gopher or is available on request from Allyn Fitzgerald (allyn@cni.org). The workshop is supported in part by a grant to ARL from the H.W. Wilson Foundation to develop educational materials that assist academic and research librarians to fulfill their role as leaders for copyright awareness. ------- ARL 181 A Bimonthly Newsletter of Research Library Issues and Actions Association of Research Libraries August 1995