Copyright Research Update

I wanted to wait another day to report as I had a very exciting phone call with Nick Shockey, the Director of Programs and Engagement at SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), a lobbying and advocacy group dedicated to open access, open data and open education. My path to Nick was very circuitous. Much of my academic focus since coming to Simmons has focused on copyright and intellectual property, and part of this final research push has included my enrollment in Harvard Law School's CopyrightX course, and development of a chapter for a Kyle Courtney edited book on library leadership and intellectual property, to be published later this year on an open access press, Mission Bell Media. I see all the research as part of one grand exploration, really, and have realized that the focus of my Capstone project is less on just public media, and more on the impact of copyright and the open movement on research services and access to information--and even moreso, the need for involvement of LIS students in these advocacy realms.

I have had trouble scheduling an interview with Peter Kaufman at Columbia, which has also led to my slight readjustment of focus. I did conduct a great interview with Karen Cariani at the WGBH Library and Media Archive where we discuss the many hinderances copyright has placed upon access to public media archives, which plays into a larger discussion of the potential digital media provides in terms of increasing access, but the barriers placed upon this potential by policy and law.

In working on my chapter for Kyle--which I am now seeing as the major deliverable for this project, since it IS a publishable deliverable as I had hoped, but offers more forward examination than limited to just public media. I feel passionately that LIS programs (not just Simmons) are not adequately preparing future librarians for work with digital media in that attention to intellectual property parameters are mostly glossed over, or even worse, the idea that copyright is "scary" and thus shouldn't be approached by librarians is further promoted. This is dangerous. In the course of this research I have spoken with professional librarians and archivists in many areas/capacities, and all agree a solid understanding of copyright is absolutely integral to ANY library work you do, especially if you intend to move into leadership positions. I participated in an open community call of early career librarians in the scholarly communications field hosted by Open Con a few days ago and it was repeated by most, that their LIS programs did not prepare them for working with intellectual property or open access. This needs to change!

My final thesis goes beyond that and argues not only do we need more (required) curriculum but we need to engage LIS students in copyright and open access advocacy (which is a complicated relationship in and of itself, my piece explains a bit), because if we aren't prepared to advocate for our users in some of the most pressing issues facing access to information in the coming era, we are doing them, and our professional a disservice.

I will be completing a first draft of the chapter this week, and then expanding interviews. I have been invited by Open Con to present my research on their next community call May 10th, which seems a perfect 'cap' to my capstone!