Spring Meeting Deadline!

April 7 is the deadline for registrations to the Spring Meeting which will be held on April 11 from 8:30 am - 2:30 pm at South University. Make sure you get your registerations in next week to make the deadline. Here is the link to the registration form, food and parking information: http://vall.pbworks.com/w/file/76518296/VALL_2014_Spring_Meeting_Registration_FINAL.pdf

VALL Grants

The VALL Executive Board has directed the Grants committee to award three grants to help members interested in attending the AALL Annual Meeting in San Antonio. The first of these grants is the Barbara Cumming Professional Development Grant in the amount of $500. This grant is named after a long-time VALL member and was established by her firm upon her death. Priority for this grant will be given to a firm librarian. The other two grants are VALL/AALL Travel Grants in the amount of $1000 each.

All three grants use the common application form found on the VALL wiki. The application form and information about the grants can be found here: http://vall.pbworks.com/w/page/23509251/VALL%20Grants

The deadline for all of the grants is 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 1, 2014.

Why Copyright?

by Paul Hellyer

So why should VALLTalk have a series on copyright law, of all things? I would say that for most

librarians, there’s no area of law more important than copyright. Being a librarian is all about sharing intellectual property, in one way or another.  We need to know how to get our jobs done without getting ourselves into trouble.

But for librarians, copyright should be more than just a cautionary tale. Copyright knowledge  is empowering in our day-to-day work. It also gives us an opportunity to advocate for our patrons’ interests.
Copyright law has long been a tug-of-war between owners’ interests and users’ interests. On the owners’ side, publishers and movie studios spend a great deal of money on advertising, lobbyists and lawyers to advance their interests. But it’s harder for users to organize and represent themselves.  We’re bombarded by messages about owners’ rights. What about users’ rights? Who will stand up for them?

Now I can hear some of you saying, “but users have no rights. Copyright law is for the benefit of copyright owners.” If you think this, you’ve been listening to the wrong people.

The ultimate purpose of copyright law is not to protect owners’ interests. It’s to “promote the progress of science and the useful arts.” That’s from the Constitution, Article I, Section 8. The Supreme Court has made it clear that copyright is ultimately designed to promote the public’s interests. See Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 156 (1975) (“[T]he ultimate aim is . . . to stimulate artistic creativity for the general public good”); U.S. v. Paramount Pictures, 334 U.S. 131, 158 (1948) (“[C]opyright law . . . makes reward to the owner a secondary consideration”);  Fox Films Corp. v. Doyal, 286 U.S. 123, 127 (1932) (“[T]he primary object [of copyright] lie[s] in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors”).

Copyright is a balance between incentives for creators and access for the public. Publishers have been putting a lot of weight on their end of the scale. Librarians can put some pressure on the other end.

Congress has already acknowledged the special role that libraries play in the dissemination of intellectual property. We have our own section in the Copyright Act, Section 108, that gives libraries certain rights beyond what other users can do. Libraries exercise these rights for the benefit of their patrons. We also benefit from fair use rights, which are especially strong when we’re serving academic researchers.

To benefit from these rights, we have to educate ourselves. We can’t rely on publishers to tell us what to do. When it comes to copyright law, publishers are usually not a reliable source of information. They tend to overreach in describing their own rights and often fail to acknowledge fair use and other exceptions. Librarians need to create their own forums for copyright law.

So that’s why copyright is on VALLTalk.

If you have questions about copyright law that you would like to see addressed in this column, please send them to me at phellyer@wm.edu. I can’t provide legal advice, but like any commentator, I can discuss hypotheticals or general questions.

I also hope to be writing soon on the 11^th Circuit’s forthcoming ruling in Cambridge University Press v. Becker. This case is a great example of a library and university standing up for users’ rights. Oral arguments were held in November, so the ruling could come any time now. This is an important case for libraries and for fair use, so let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Paul Hellyer has been a reference librarian at William & Mary Law School since 2005 and he is co-author of Librarian’s Copyright Companion, 2^nd ed., published in 2012 by Hein.

VALL Spring Meeting 2014

The meeting will be held at South University on April 11 from 8:30 am - 2:30 pm. Here is the link to registration information including progam, food and directions: http://vall.pbworks.com/w/file/76518296/VALL_2014_Spring_Meeting_Registration_FINAL.pdf

Deadline is April 7 ... don't let it creep up on you ... apply now!

Welcome New Member!

Barbara Ryan
Information Specialist
City of Virginia Beach / Wahab Public Law Library
2425 Nimmo Parkway
Judicial Center, 10B
Virginia Beach, VA 23456
(o) 757.385.4419
(f) 757.385.8742
BRyan@VBgov.com

Slate of Officers 2014 Executive Board

Vice President/President-Elect: Stephanie Miller, Washington & Lee University School of Law

Secretary: Christina Vassey, Thomson Reuters
Director: Andrew Winston, University of Richmond School of Law

Per VALL by-laws:
- Further nominations may be delivered to the Chair of the Nominating Committee by February 15.
- If no nominations from the membership are received by the Chair of the Nominating Committee by February 15, each candidate presented to the membership as the only candidate for a particular office shall be deemed elected as of February 28.

VLA Council Meeting 1/10/14

By Terry Long, VALL Liaison to VLA



Highlights of the VLA Council Meeting:

President Kevin Smith said his objectives this year would be: he would like to see more articles in Virginia Libraries; he is working on a statement on the value of a graduate degree in library and information science; and, he wants to make VLA more relative to newer members.

Lisa Varga, Executive Director of VLA, presented a prototype to the redesigned and streamlined VLA web site; there will be a soft launch on February 1st.

Successful fundraising by the Scholarship Committee has resulted in a carryover of $1600 toward the next year’s fund. Currently, they have two scholarships available of $2500 each for VLA members pursuing their library science degree.

The VLA Paraprofessional Forum will be held May 18-20 at the Double Tree Koger Conference Center in Richmond.

New Members Roundtable Forum has a Facebook page with activities listed for each region. They hope to increase twitter chats each month on a designated topic. The Forum also is considering a mentoring program.

The College and Research Libraries Roundtable has a program in March, Communicating the Value of Academic Libraries. It will be held at the Twin Hickory Library in Glen Allen on March 31. For more information visit http://www.vla.org/vla-units/forums/virginia-library-association-college-research-libraries-chapter-2/

Agents of Change: the Library Spy Conference is the theme of the next VLA Annual Conference to be held in Williamsburg at the DoubleTree Hotel on October 22-24.