Recast Copyright For The Digital Age
(by Peter Hirtle) One of the more interesting experiments in citizen democracy is the White House petition. Anyone can propose a petition; if it gets enough signatures (currently 100,000), the White House has to respond. My favorite so far has been the petition proposing that the government build a Death Star. The official White House […]
Library-friendly decision in the Wiley v. Kirtsaeng case
(by Peter Hirtle) Many of you will have seen the article in the Cornell Daily Sun last November on the Wiley v. Kirtsaeng case. While a Cornell student, Supap Kirtsaeng bought legal copies of textbooks in Thailand and then sold them in the United States. The appeals court in New York found him guilty of […]
Blackboard’s xpLor – beta pilot of Learning Object Repository
During the Fall 2012 semester, I joined some colleagues from Academic Technology Services (ATS) to participate in a Beta pilot program for Blackboard’s new product called xpLor. xpLor is a cloud-based Learning Object Repository (LOR). “Learning objects” can be files (documents, PDFs, media clips), quizzes, assignments, discussions, rubrics, and learning modules. The goal of a […]
HathiTrust Litigation Update
by Peter Hirtle You may recall that in mid-October the litigation against the HathiTrust and five of its member libraries (including Cornell) was dismissed. In his decision, Judge Baer wrote “I cannot imagine a definition of fair use that…would require that I terminate this invaluable contribution to the progress of science and cultivation of the […]
AAP and Google Books Settle [Updated]
(by Peter Hirtle) By now, many of you will have heard that Google and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) have reached a settlement in the latter’s seven-year lawsuit against the former. The AAP’s press release is here; there are also good initial news stories at Publishers Weekly and Paid Content. The question is naturally, […]
Introducing the Scholarly Communication Awareness Program
It is a great pleasure to announce a new program that we’ll be piloting this fall to provide discussion and awareness building forums for CUL’s liaisons in regard to scholarly communication and digital scholarship. One of the CUL Priority Objectives (III.1) has been formalizing the network of library liaisons to departments and academic programs across […]
Figuring out the Public Domain
(by Peter Hirtle) The chart on copyright duration is consistently one of the most-popular web pages on the Copyright Information Center’s web site. In many cases, the chart can help people determine if a work is in the public domain in the US. But there are lots of potential minefields in the public domain. I […]
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