clarification

From: Gail L. Kovalik (716) 475-5343 <KOVALIK.GL[_at_]a1.rit.edu>
Date: Fri, 02 Dec 1994 14:57:00 +0000

I am a new member of this listserv, and I need clarification of "fair use" as it applies to my new position.

I am a librarian in a small faculty research library at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (a college of Rochester Institute of Technology). We are a nonprofit educational institution, but completely funded by the federal government. However, our researchers are RIT faculty, not government employees. One of our charges (from the federal government) is to research all aspects of deafness and to disseminate the products of our research to the community at large.

I have been named to head up the "dissemination" effort, and have been charged with developing an archive of all publications and other materials produced by NTID researchers. Because our researchers are tenure track faculty, the bulk of publication has been done outside the institute, primarily in peer-reviewed publications.

We want to be able to gather these materials in one place, promote their availability to outside users, and disseminate copies of these materials. Our users (outside NTID and RIT) would primarily be other researchers in the field, educators of deaf students, people who work with deaf people (interpreters, vocational rehabilitation folks, employers of deaf people, counselors, etc.). Many of these people are not in positions where they have access to large research libraries (it's a small field; there are probably only three libraries in the country which maintain significant collections in the field of deafness).

We are *not* charging for copies of articles, chapters from books, or conference papers. One copy of any given publication will be provided free to individual requestors. Noting Lolly Gasaway's comment of 12/1/94:

>Making an occasional copy for a colleague might be fair use,
>but if the author receives a considerable number of requests,
>then he or she is acting as a document delivery service of sorts.

IS THIS FAIR USE? If it's not, do you have suggestions or strategies that we should follow in complying with the copyright law? For example, linking up with the Copyright Clearing House (although this means we would have to do some sort of cost-recovery, and we really don't want to charge for dissemination of our research results); or negotiating a release with each individual publisher?

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Gail Kovalik                                    "The large print giveth,
Staff Resource Center                            and the small print
National Technical Institute for the Deaf          taketh away."
Rochester Institute of Technology                       --Tom Waits

52 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY 14623-5604
716/475-5343 (V/TTY)
716/475-6500 (FAX)
<GLK9638[_at_]RIT.EDU>

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Received on Tue Dec 06 1994 - 18:09:20 GMT