Recently Asked Questions

Our postman refuses to wear a mask in the building even though it is policy and a NYS mandate. When asked to, he refuses and because of that, now delivers the mail by yelling "mail" into our building bookdrop and drops the mail inside. If no one hears him, we miss our opportunity to give him outgoing mail, which he told us to just drop in a mailbox down the street. Yesterday he placed two very heavy boxes in the vestibule without us knowing.

I did call the post office and the postmaster stated that he can only ask him to wear one, but he can't force him to. Am I missing something? What is the legal obligation of the mail carrier? And why doesn't he have to follow the rules of the establishments he is entering? It is now getting to the point where it is disrupting our mail service. Do I have a leg to stand on here?

Some of my member libraries have questions about the new Gender Neutral Bathroom Legislation:
 

1) Type of signage required to be placed on or near the bathroom door. That is, does the sign have to specify "gender neutral", or, is "bathroom" ok.  Also, can one use a sign that uses symbols (male, female, ADA) rather than sex?

2) Is a library required to have at least one designated male and one designated female bathroom in the building in addition to a gender neutral one? One of my libraries was with 3 bathrooms was told that was the case.

3) Is there a height requirement for braille signs so that individuals who use wheelchairs can reach it?

[This is the part of the legislation that is generating questions: "Such gender neutral bathroom facilities shall be clearly designated by the posting of such on or near the entry door of each facility."]

It will be good to have clarification/interpretation; it sounds like it has to be clearly stated as gender neutral, which likely can be done with signs with the symbols, but you never know.

Thank you in advance for providing clarification on this legislation.

When is it advisable for an author/creator to register a work with the copyright office?

I work in higher education. Students will sometimes ask for information on copyright protection for a thesis (written, not performance). Sometimes faculty will ask about protecting various devices of education such as a syllabus, exam or spreadsheet.

The Copyright Office used to promote the idea that works that are fixed do not necessarily need to be registered. When is registration a good idea? What does registration do for copyright holders?

We are a municipal library and the building is owned by the county. The county will be installing security cameras outside the library in multiple locations for safety reasons. These cameras will not be regularly monitored unless there is a reason to consult them. We will not be viewing the footage per a patron’s request. They will be maintained by our county facilities staff and consulted only in cases where a criminal act was committed.

I have two questions related to this.

1. What type of permanent notification do we need to post about the use of cameras?

 2. What major points do we need to ensure we include in our privacy policy?

(Question has been slightly modified to maintain anonymity)

We have been digitizing restaurant, hotel and other menus from our historical menu collection and have been following standard copyright protocols – but also making many case-by-case decisions based on things like whether of the establishment still exists, etc. (With only a couple exceptions I made for a faculty member who had permission of the restaurant owners, I haven’t scanned any menus from after 2000.) Our public collection site is used by students and researchers around the world.

My question is: can we scan and put online menus dated after 1977 (and especially more recent – up until 2021) if it is for educational purposes? If we do scan them, would we need permissions from every single chef/owner? The copyright status of menus in general has always seemed murky to me, but I don’t even know where to go to find clear answers for this situation.