Fair Use Week: Infographic

Each year ARL, the Association of Research Libraries, publishes a new infographic in conjunction with Fair Use Week, February 26 through March 2, 2018. The focus for 2018 illustrates How Fair Use Promotes the Creation of New Knowledge.

"Fair use is an essential right under copyright law, supporting the constitutional purpose of copyright: to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. Where copyright law might otherwise act to prevent people from accessing knowledge, fair use permits everyone to use existing cultural and scientific material without permission, under certain circumstances." - Association of Research Libraries, Infographic

ARL's Fair Use infographics are freely available to download (PDF) and use. Interested in more information about Fair Use Week? Review ARL's Fair Use Week web site.

Learn more about Fair Use and reviewing previous Fair Use infographics on AU Library's Copyright LibGuide, featuring ARL Best Practices in Fair Use.

Government Shutdown?

The Federal Government shutdown that began Tuesday affects some important library resources, but most of our databases are unaffected.  Here are some resources that will be unavailable until Congress restores federal funding:

We cannot place interlibrary loan requests with federal libraries, including The Library of Congress, The National Library of Medicine, and the National Agricultural Library.

Various federal websites are shut down, including Census.gov, American Factfinder, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Data.gov, Federal Trade Commission, FedStats, International Trade Administration, and USA Trade Online.

Some federal websites are accessible but are not being updated, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Commerce.gov, Copyright.gov, and the Department of Labor website.

The public ERIC website is shut down, but the ERIC database on the EBSCO platform remains available.

Some federal websites appear to be unaffected, such as Department of Energy's osti.gov.

If you have questions about access to government resources, contact the Reference Desk at 419-289-5402 or library@ashland.edu

Fair Use Code Issued by Association of Research Libraries

A recurring question for students, faculty, and librarians is what use they can legally make of text, music, pictures, or video without violating copyright.  We have a new resource to draw on in grappling with that question with the release yesterday of the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries, issued by the Association of Research Libraries.

A product of two years of interviews and discussions, and developed in conjunction with the Center for Social Media and the Washington College of Law at Washington University, this Code is expected to be of considerable assistance to libraries when faced with the conflicting claims of copyright holders and researchers.  Further guidance can be found in FAQs aimed at Professors and Students.