What the University of Arkansas controversy can teach us about archival permission practices
Peter Hirtle’s article regarding an archive having a “permission to publish” policy makes many great points. Possibly the best one is that it could actually increase the chance that the library/archive is liable for copyright infringement.
The Arkansas case study demonstrates that archival “permission to publish” is a practice that is both poorly understood and which can be detrimental to the donor, the repository, and the researcher. Following this standard archival procedure, as the University of Arkansas suggests, is not “good business practice…[that] makes operations run smoothly.” It is time for repositories to get out of the “permission to publish” game and leave permissions to the copyright owner.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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Peter Hirtle’s article regarding an archive having a “permission to publish” policy makes many great points. Possibly the best one is that it could actually increase the chance that the library/archive is liable for copyright infringement.