Recently Asked Questions

I am reaching out to request a legal opinion regarding the roles and responsibilities of library staff in supporting board fundraising efforts, as well as the permissible use of library digital platforms for fundraising activities. As a New York association library, we strive to adhere to state guidelines and ethical standards and seek clarity on the following specific matters:

Staff Involvement in Fundraising
Are there any legal restrictions or guidelines that would limit or prohibit our library staff from directly or indirectly assisting in fundraising efforts organized by the library board? We are interested in understanding any relevant employment or nonprofit regulations that would guide staff participation in these activities.

Use of Library’s Website and Facebook Account for Fundraising
Can the library board legally use the library’s official website and existing Facebook account to promote or facilitate board-led fundraising campaigns? We would like to ensure that these actions comply with any applicable state laws and nonprofit guidelines that might apply to public association libraries in New York.

Creation of a Library Board Facebook Account for Fundraising
If the above is permissible, is it also acceptable for the board to establish a separate Facebook account specifically for fundraising purposes on behalf of the library? We are particularly concerned with understanding the necessary distinctions (if any) between a board account and the library’s official social media presence.

Your legal guidance on these questions will be invaluable in helping our board make informed, compliant decisions about our fundraising strategies and staff involvement. If any additional information is required for this analysis, please let me know.

Thank you for your attention to these matters. We look forward to your advice.

We have an archive in our Library. We recently got a large donation of research that was used by the donor in the process of researching a book (we have the book in our catalog).

We were hoping the research was primary and original, but upon review, it largely consisted of:

• PDFs of full books taken from Google Books 
• PDFs of book excerpts taken from Google Books
• PDFs of articles with no identifying publication information
• PDFs/Word Documents with excerpts copied and pasted from websites and articles without attribution

This set off major alarm bells!

To complicate things, we have been so busy running our institution, our policies have not been updated to address concerns about “born digital” donations. And of course, we want to keep up a good relationship with the donor, who is a local author.

Is there a disclaimer or notice we can put on the online repository to protect us from potential copyright lawsuits? Is this a situation where every PDF book and document should be researched first to determine if it is in the public domain or protected by fair use? Should we simply refuse to put any of those documents online due to the risk?

Sincerely,
Discombobulated about Donations

A community member hosts a “free with donation” yoga class at our library, and attendees are encouraged to make a donation each class. These donations are collected by the yoga instructor who hands them to the circulation assistant and identifies it as a donation to the Friends of the Library organization. She keeps her receipts and totals the money each year, claiming these donations on her taxes as her contribution to a 501(c)3 organization (the Friends of the Library).

So my question is, does this constitute as fraud in any way? If so, will this be problematic for the yoga instructor, the Friends of the Library, or the Library itself (municipality) for hosting the event? They are collecting money from other people for providing a service and claiming all the donations collected as their own for a tax write off.

Any guidance on this will be appreciated! Perhaps a simple solution would be to re-word how this is done, saying that donations to the yoga instructor will be made to the yoga instructor and not advertised as a fundraiser for the Friends.

Thank you!

The library has been discussing new ways to handle our discards. A senior staff member of a very significant local library told us recently that they donate their discards to the Internet Archive. A staff member here expressed concerns with IA scanning and making publicly available on their website copyrighted materials, and concern for liability on our part for contributing to potentially illegal activity. The staff member wondered if only materials free from copyright concerns should be donated. At this point we are not looking to create a digital library as IA has done for many organizations, but just simply to donate the material for them to use as they see fit in hopes of the material being used for the greater good. Should we have any concerns with donating our discards to IA? Thanks for helping us sort-out this concern.

Many libraries/archives hold unpublished materials whose creators are deceased, but are still protected by copyright since copyright lasts 70 years after death.

If a library/archives lacks a deed of gift (or if the deed of gift doesn’t explicitly transfer copyright), can an heir transfer copyright or otherwise provide permission for the library to publish/digitize/etc? In NY, are copyrights automatically transferred to heirs when someone dies? What if there is no will?