Andrée Rathemacher

Challenges in building an incremental, multi‐year information literacy plan

The authors discuss the plan for building an incremental, multi‐year information literacy program at the University of Rhode Island. Review of the current library instruction program leads to why and how they plan to change the program by focusing on the concepts of understanding what information is, in addition to learning how to gather, evaluate, and use information. The Draft Plan for Information Literacy at the University of Rhode Island Libraries addresses the information and research needs of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty needs. The development of credit‐bearing courses in information literacy, the creation of information literacy modules for specific disciplines, and the Draft Plan for Information Literacy are discussed.

Institutional Repositories and Academic Social Networks: Competition or Complement? A Study of Open Access Policy Compliance vs. ResearchGate Participation

INTRODUCTION The popularity of academic social networks like ResearchGate and Academia.edu indicates that scholars want to share their work, yet for universities with Open Access (OA) policies, these sites may be competing with institutional repositories (IRs) for content. This article seeks to reveal researcher practices, attitudes, and motivations around uploading their work to ResearchGate and complying with an institutional OA Policy through a study of faculty at the University of Rhode Island (URI). METHODS We conducted a population study to examine the participation by 558 full-time URI faculty members in the OA Policy and ResearchGate followed by a survey of 728 full-time URI faculty members about their participation in the two services. DISCUSSION The majority of URI faculty does not participate in the OA Policy or use ResearchGate. Authors’ primary motivations for participation are sharing their work more broadly and increasing its visibility and impact. Faculty who participate in ResearchGate are more likely to participate in the OA Policy, and vice versa. The fact that the OA Policy targets the author manuscript and not the final published article constitutes a significant barrier to participation. CONCLUSION Librarians should not view academic social networks as a threat to Open Access. Authors’ strong preference for sharing the final, published version of their articles provides support for calls to hasten the transition to a Gold OA publishing system. Misunderstandings about the OA Policy and copyright indicate a need for librarians to conduct greater education and outreach to authors about options for legally sharing articles.

Altmetrics: Help Your Researchers Measure Their Full Impact

This quarters column features reports from the Great Lakes E-Summit, held September 23–24, 2013, in Oregon, OH; the Potomac Technical Processing Librarians Annual Meeting, held October 11, 2013, in Washington, DC; the Charleston Conference, held November 6–9, 2013, in Charleston, SC; Altmetrics: Help Your Researchers Measure Their Full Impact, a workshop sponsored by the Scholarly Communication Interest Group of the Association of College and Research Libraries New England Chapter (ACRL/NEC), an independent chapter of ACRL, held November 14, 2013, in Boston, MA; and the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting, held January 24–28, 2014, in Philadelphia, PA.Terms of Use This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable towards Open Access Policy Articles, as set forth in our Terms of Use.

ResearchGate vs. the Institutional Repository: Competition or Complement?

The popularity of academic social networks like ResearchGate and Academia .edu indicates that scholars want to share their work, yet for universiti es with open access (OA) policies, these sites may be competi ng with insti tuti onal repos‐ itories for content. Our study seeks to reveal researcher practi ces, atti tudes, and moti vati ons around uploading their work to ResearchGate and complying with an insti tuti onal Open Access Policy. We conducted a populati on study to examine the parti cipati on by 558 full‐ ti me University of Rhode Island faculty members in the OA Policy and Research‐ Gate, followed by a survey of 728 full‐ ti me URI faculty members about their parti cipati on in the two services. Finding 1 While a slightly greater percentage of faculty have shared arti cles through ResearchGate than through the OA Policy, only a minority of faculty (29%) are parti cipati ng in either ResearchGate, the OA Policy, or both (Figure 1). Contrary to expectati ons, faculty who parti cipate in ResearchGate are actually more likely to share their arti cles via the Open Access Policy than faculty who do not parti cipate in ResearchGate, and vice versa. This suggests librarians should not be overly concerned about academic social networking sites competi ng with OA policies; if anything, faculty who parti cipate in academic social networking sites may be more likely to share their work in general. Finding 2 Faculty reported a strong aversion to sharing the author manuscript version of their arti cles (Figure 2). This was the most signifi cant barrier to parti cipati ng in the OA Policy. This fi nding, if generalizable, should inform current discussions among OA advocates about the respecti ve roles going forward of Green OA achieved through depositi ng author manuscripts in insti tuti onal repositories and Gold OA achieved at the point of publicati on. Finding 3 Our survey revealed a range of misunderstandings about the insti tuti onal repository (IR), OA policies, and copyright (Figure 3). For example, many respon‐ dents believe that the legality of posti ng one’s arti cles in both the IR and ResearchGate depends on publisher policy and the version of the arti cle posted. In fact, permissions‐ based OA policies make it legal to post author manuscripts in the IR regardless of publisher policies, and many subscripti on‐ access journals prohibit depositi ng any version of an arti cle to commercial sites like ResearchGate. These misun‐ derstandings indicate a need for librarians to conduct greater educati on and outreach to faculty around their opti ons for legally sharing published arti cles. Conclusions Librarians should not view academic social networks as a threat to open access. Authors’ strong pref‐ erence for sharing the fi nal, published version of their arti cles provides support for calls to hasten the Figure 1. Faculty parti cipati on in URI Open Access Policy and ResearchGate (n = 558).

New England Technical Services Librarians Spring 2012 Conference: iLibrary: Digital Futures for Libraries (May 3, 2012, Worcester, MA)

This report discusses the program of the 2012 New England Technical Services Librarians (NETSL) annual spring conference, held on Thursday, May 3 at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, titled “iLibrary: Digital Futures for Libraries.” NETSL is a section of the New England Library Association and a regional group of the American Library Association. Big Data: Dig Deal? New Challenges for Scholars & Librarians

Panel Discussion on Libraries and Best Practices in Fair Use

This report covers a panel discussion on the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries, published in January 2012 by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) [1]. The panel was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on March 23, 2012 and was hosted by the MIT Libraries. Panelists were Patricia Aufderheide of the Center for Social Media at American University, Brandon Butler of ARL, Kyle Courtney of Harvard Law School, and Jay Wilcoxson of MIT. Fair Use and Research Librarians The panelists were introduced by MIT librarians Diane Geraci, Associate Director for Information Services, and Ellen Duranceau, Program Manager, Scholarly Publishing and Licensing, who explained that the co-facilitators of the Code are in the process of speaking to librarians around the country to discuss how its principles can help solve local challenges and improve policies dealing with copyright and fair use. Patricia Aufderheide spoke first. Aufderheide is University Professor in the School of Communication at American University and founder of the Center for Social Media there. She heads the Fair Use and Free Speech research project at the Center and is the co-author, with Peter Jaszi, of the book Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright, published last year. Aufderheide explained that creating codes of best practice for fair use [2] is important because judges take into account the common practices of a given community when deciding fair use cases. If embraced by the academic library community, the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries will help provide a solid legal foundation for many current library practices and give librarians more confidence in exercising their fair use rights. Aufderheide clarified that the purpose of copyright law as written and understood by legal scholars and judges is not to protect content creators (that is just a tactic), but to promote the creation of culture. Copyright law does this by rewarding creators with a limited monopoly while also encouraging new uses of existing culture. This balance is essential. Culture is the currency of a civilization, and all new culture references existing culture. If culture is locked up such that existing copyright owners become private censors, then creators can only make new culture that others let them make. Culture is social, collective, and collaborative, and it is the principle of fair use—the legal, unauthorized use of copyrighted material under some circumstances—that balances the interests of copyright owners and creators of new culture. If society allowed existing copyright holders to privately censor uses of their work in perpetuity, this would violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The exceptions and limitations of copyright as embodied in fair use are a core feature of copyright law, not a special favor. Brandon Butler, Director of Public Policy Initiatives at ARL, added that fair use is flexible. This flexibility opens up space for creativity not just by creators, but also by lawyers and judges. Fair use is neither black-and-white nor quantifiable. It is a space where a smart lawyer confronting a new situation can apply new ways of thinking. For over a century, fair use was not part of the written copyright law. The concept of fair use was created in the 1840s by a judge exercising his common law power to not enforce the law when it seemed unfair. Only in the 1976 revision of copyright law was fair use put into writing, and even then Congress made it explicit that judges would continue to have a wide degree of latitude in their interpretations of fair use. When ruling on a fair use case, judges consider four factors. The first factor is the reason for the use: Is someone simply trying to profit unfairly from another person’s work, or are they doing something new and different? Second, what kind of work was used? Butler explained that this factor has been the home of some bad doctrines. It used to be the case that if a creator wanted to make use of someone else’s work and that work was not published, judges believed that the creator could not use it, as they mistakenly believed that the original author had the absolute right to decide when his or her work would be published. This notion was ultimately rejected, and now the fact that something is unpublished does not bar it from being used under fair use. A third factor for consideration is the amount of the original work used. It was formerly the case that if a creator made use of an entire work by someone else, the use was not considered fair. This interpretation, too, has been discarded over the last few decades; current interpretations of fair use law are more nuanced and consider whether the amount used was appropriate. The fourth factor is effect on the market. Here, too, interpretations have evolved. This factor used to be the most important: whether or not the use in question damaged the market for the original work. However, just because copyright holders can be paid when their work is used by others does not mean that they should be paid. A more important question is whether the use in question has an effect on the legitimate market for the original work. Butler explained that judges in recent years have given more weight to the balancing features of fair use, as copyright laws have become more restrictive, with automatic protection for all creative works, longer terms, and increased awards for damages. The Supreme Court has ruled that fair use is covered by First Amendment protections of free speech; if it were not for the right of fair use, copyright would be an unconstitutional regime because it would allow private censorship by copyright holders. When the Supreme Court in the recent Golan v. Holder case restored copyright status to foreign works previously in the public domain, the justices argued that fair use would serve as an effective counterweight to the increased copyright protections. This shift in judicial interpretations of fair use was heavily influenced by Judge Pierre N. Leval’s 1990 article in the Harvard Law Review [3] that focused on the role of “transformativeness” in fair use. Judges now tend to apply Leval’s two-step test, asking first if the use is transformative (i.e. used for a new purpose, context, audience, or insight) and second if the appropriate amount was used to satisfy the transformative use. In addition to the two-step test, important factors in fair use decisions are custom and the practice of individual creative communities, especially when these are well-documented. In a 2004 article that appeared in the William & Mary Law Review [4], University of Pittsburgh law professor Michael J. Madison examined past fair use decisions looking for commonalities. He found that judges tended to support the creative activities of legitimate communities that could articulate the values that motivated their cultural practices. It was this insight that lead to the development of best practices codes. Aufderheide explained that she and Peter Jaszi began their work to create codes of best practices because, despite the liberal interpretations of fair use espoused by legal scholars, creators wanted more comfort in making their individual decisions. The Center for Social Media has facilitated the creation of fair use codes for a number of communities, including documentary filmmakers, film scholars, media literacy educators, users of dance-related materials, and creators of online video and OpenCourseWare. Documentary filmmakers were startled to discover, when they examined their practices, that there were a number of topics they shied away from making films about, for example anything to do with popular music and movies, public affairs, news, and parody. The filmmakers engaged in lengthy discussions about the practices that they themselves thought should fall under fair use. They identified four situations common in documentary filmmaking in which fair use should apply and documented them in a code of practice. Within weeks, documentary films were being shown at the Sundance Film Festival with clearances that would not have been possible without the code. Over the course of the next year, and because they had this code to guide them, insurers of errors and omissions in documentary films agreed (for the first time in two decades) to insure for fair use. Fair use claims are now being covered at no added cost. Aufderheide stressed that these are codes of best practices, not guidelines. They are principles, not rules; limitations, not bans; and require reasoning in their application, not rote. She explained that fair use matters to librarians because it enables them to fulfill their mission of preserving knowledge and carrying it forward to the future. Libraries preserve culture; they preserve copyrighted artifacts. To remain relevant and to meet their users’ needs, libraries must be able to digitize these artifacts. “Is the past going to become a black hole into which everything copyrighted in the twentieth century disappears until it emerges into the public domain?” asked Aufderheide. In the two years that Aufderheide and Jaszi worked with librarians to develop the Code, they found that copyright was an open wound in the library world. Innovative projects would be started, then librarians would realize that too many permissions were needed and that obtaining them would take too much time, so the projects would be stopped. Projects that seemed important were not getting done; needs were not being met. This insecurity and hesitation meant that libraries’ missions were deformed, for example when useful digital projects were avoided, digitized materials were hidden behind passwords, and the digitization of high-interest materials was passed over for more obscure projects that would be less likely to attract copyright complaints. In short, fair use was under-used and risk av