Re: Question on sharing digital document delivery materials

[Kevin L Smith <kevin.l.smith@xxxxxxxx>]

I think you are correct that scanning and posting an article is similar to 
distributing multiple photocopies, but I would point out that both 
activities may be amenable to a fair use justification.

What your faculty member wants to do is really just a version of 
electronic reserves, and the fair use argument for her proposed copying is 
strengthened by the very limited distribution (only 5 faculty members) and 
the fact that it is presumably a one-time use for the duration of the 
project.

Although the recent attention on transformative uses has caused us to 
forget it, multiple copies for educational uses is one of the exemplars of 
fair use; both our traditional and electronic reserves systems depend on 
it.  If the professor could put the article in an e-reserve system for use 
by 100 students, at least for one semester, why should she not post it in 
a similarly limited-access system for short-term use by five people?

Kevin

Kevin L. Smith
Scholarly Communications Officer
Perkins Library, Duke University
PO Box 90193
Durham, NC  27708
919-668-4451
kevin.l.smith@xxxxxxxx
http://library.duke.edu/blogs/scholcomm/



deg farrelly <deg.farrelly@xxxxxxx> 
03/20/2007 10:06 PM

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Subject
Question on sharing digital document delivery materials






I have received the following question from a faculty member.   I would
appreciate hearing your opinions on this.

She writes:

<<we are talking about developing a blackboard site that would have access
limited to a handful of faculty - e.g., five or so - working 
collaboratively
on a research topic (e.g., teacher retention).

Suppose, as one of the five faculty members I get a digitally delivered
document.

Can I post that document to the blackboard site so that my collaborators 
can
download
it and access it?

Visualize this as taking the place of a plastic tub of folders where 
shared
resources would be kept. Can we do it?

What limits?>>


MY interpretation is (assuming all of the faculty are members of my
institution and can be authenticated)
if the document were something that we had licensed access to, there would
be no question of  * linking * a durable URL to the article.

But POSTING an article received via DocDel or ILL for others to use is
equivalent to making multiple photocopies and sending them out.


Your thoughts?  (Are MUCH appreciated!)


--
deg farrelly, Associate Librarian
Arizona State University at the West campus
PO Box 37100
Phoenix, Arizona  85069-7100
Phone:  602.543.8522
Email:  deg.farrelly@xxxxxxx