Recently Asked Questions

Students in a school are reading a simultaneous use eBook. The students with IEPs[1] have access to a screen reader but this feature is very robotic and doesn't meet their needs. The school librarian and the School Library System searched for an audio version of this book but could not find one for purchase. Several students need a high-quality audio version of the book that is not robotic because of their learning needs. Would the school library be covered under fair use if they recorded a reading of the book for the students and posted it in Google Classroom for the students? This would be in a closed platform and not open to everybody on the internet.

[1] IEP stands for "Individual Education Program, “which is a tool used in elementary and secondary schools to effect ADA accommodations for students.  For more info on that, see https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/504faq.html.

I received a request from a former student of [a local high school] in which her name appears on a yearbook page citing student activities. As the page is part of a whole PDF of the entire yearbook, "removing her name" would require taking down the entire yearbook.

If the library that scanned and uploaded the yearbook to the internet received permission from the high school to do so (the yearbook is tagged as In Copyright) does the student have a reasonable request?

I have an instructor who asked if it would be violating copyright infringement if she shares articles from her personal Continuing Education Units (CEU) account subscription with her students as class reading assignments.

I have been reading the legal arguments undergirding the Controlled Digital Lending initiative (controlleddigitallending.org). The legal arguments are outlined in the white paper here: https://controlleddigitallending.org/whitepaper.

Our library has a DVD collection that has been heavily used over the years for teaching, research, and recreational use. Circulation of that collection has been restricted to members of our campus. There are fewer and fewer DVD players available on campus now and so we are facing significant sunk costs with a collection that may become unusable. Hence, I am wondering whether we could reformat DVDs that we have purchased over the years, put those physical copies in a dark archive (i.e., no longer circulating), and stream the digitized copies one user at a time to verified members of our campus (current students, staff, and faculty). Would the doctrines of 1st sale and Fair Use apply, given that there would be a one-to-one relationship between the physical copy purchased and digital copy loaned, as well as noncommercial use?

Recently, our library has been given a collection of photographs that were previously on display in a local business location. These are photos of the customers of the business, many are children. These photos span several decades and are important to many. 

We would like to digitize these photos and make them available via the internet because we believe these to be of sentimental, cultural, historical and academic value to our region and beyond.

The photos were given to our library by the business that had previously displayed them and also produced the photos. What are the issues of rights and permissions raised by making these images freely available online, especially given that many of those in the photos are children? Thanks for your help.