I. Background

Traditional course reserve procedures have usually been based on the guidelines stated in the American Library Association's Model Policy Concerning College and University Photocopying for Classroom, Research and Library Reserve.  It is no surprise that, just as there are varying opinions for interpreting and implementing copyright procedures for traditional course reserves and course packs, there are already differing interpretations of how copyright should be handled for digital formats.  At Santa Clara University, the procedures described below apply to services such as Prometheus, Electronic Reserve (ERes), Interlibrary Loan, Course Reserve, and any other means of disseminating material electronically.

The following guidelines have been written for Santa Clara University. They are not intended to be a primer on copyright law. For more information on copyright law, we recommend the University of Texas' Crash Course on Copyright: http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/cprtindx.htm

For a discussion of Fair Use, we recommend two web sites. Cornell University has an excellent description of Fair Use at their web site: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html .

So, too, does the University of Texas: http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/copypol2.htm).

At the 1994 ALA Midwinter Conference, Duane Webster from the Association of Research Libraries, participated in a panel discussion on Electronic Reserve Systems. He said, "The Library Community has worked hard to establish the right of fair use and re-use of materials. Advancing the rights of fair use and special uses for libraries should be one of the goals of the Electronic Reserve initiative. We need to put systems into practice to determine what constitutes reasonable use. Lawyers should alert us to the potential risks of our system designs, but the values and goals of scholarly communication should not be sacrificed on the altar of risk avoidance."

At the ARL Electronic Reserve Workshop, June 2-4, 1994 in Durham, North Carolina, Paul Kobulnicky, former Interim Director of the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh, reported that at a meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information, the consensus was that assuming access to electronic information will be based on collecting royalties undermines the right of fair use. We can and should extend the rights of fair use (as expressed in the 1982 ALA guidelines) to electronic formats. Mr. Kobulnicky said that the scholarly information community can build on existing relationships with publishers in ways that include some accountability for the use of copyrighted information but that also recognize the importance of fair use.

For further information on application of Fair Use and copyright as it applies to Santa Clara University, please see: Fair Use in the Electronic Age.

Note:  Where ERes is mentioned, assume that the policy applies to anything made electronically accessible.  This includes any materials placed on the World Wide Web or in Santa Clara University’s electronic course management systems.