THE EFFECT OF COPYRIGHT ON LIBRARIES: ONE ASSESSMENT
| Published date | 01 March 1988 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb054908 |
| Pages | 25-32 |
| Date | 01 March 1988 |
| Author | Barry Woodward |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
THE EFFECT OF COPYRIGHT ON
LIBRARIES: ONE ASSESSMENT
by Barry Woodward
Introduction
I have worked in libraries for nearly three decades and have adopted as a maxim
"the right books in the right hands at the right time". For a variety of reasons it is
not always possible to have the "right book" as such and a good working substitute
is often a photocopy. One major area where photocopies are a practical means of
provision is in our student collection, the Reserve Collection, where one or at most
three copies are
held.
This makes available information which should be read at an
appropriate place in a course. We believe that in the future a financial penalty will
be incurred and will be hard to meet. This type of copying will fall under "systematic
single copying", an iniquitous catch-all phrase. In the past we have taken pride in
the fact that with efficient management by the library, co-operation with academic
staff and good sense from our students we could provide whatever was needed with
a high level of certainty. The effect of militant copyright holders if unchecked will
seriously impede us in achieving our aims and this will be one more factor in turning
our graduates from people with wide information horizons into narrowly trained
technocrats. We must ask if this is in the national interest. We are and will be in
intense competition with other nations. Wrong use of copyright alone will not create
this adverse state; it is but one element along with the high rate of inflation in books
and journals, VAT at above zero rating, uncritical publication, repetitive publication,
increasingly adverse staff/student ratios, bureaucratic dominance, policies that enforce
a blinkered approach and deny imagination and so on.
Furthermore, publishers do not speak with a common voice within one country —
let alone internationally. Their "central" voices are secretive and their motives muddled.
Is their stance moral? Or is it economic? Who has what "rights"? Most authors in
the educational field are salaried workers, they write as part of the job. Perhaps short-
sighted publishers are hoping for cash now whereas far-sighted publishers are hoping
for a stranglehold on all images, however produced. What of publishers' minimal
input to pre-edited camera-ready copy? What of those publishers who wish their
users to be able to copy freely for educational purposes?
Enough of this! What my records of our applications to make one or a few copies
of pages from books and journals show is that the copying that we do, and I believe
similar copying done in other libraries, does no harm to publishers at any measurable
level.
Note that I do not defend the pirating of editions, and in any case we prefer
to use original texts wherever we can for practical reasons. We are forced into copying
to achieve our aims.
The statistical analysis which follows speaks for itself. In particular note that publishers
stated that they could supply only 1 per cent of that which we wished to copy. A
substantial proportion was non-current and held by libraries, nor in publishers' stores.
The number of "publishers" is large and unless any central authority speaks for all,
the bureaucracy will get ridiculous. Elapsed time while we wait for a reply reduces
our efficiency and don't publishers get touchy if you require a prompt reply! Permission 25
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