Due to the temporary shut-down of all SLA websites this past week to allow for the launching of the new SLA website, UNYSLA will be extending its early bird registration rate for Digital (In)security: Protecting Our Libraries, Networks, and Identities until 5:00pm, Wednesday, 3 April.

Tasks for the day: 1. Shower 2. Eat breakfast 3. Watch weather report. 4. Drive to work. 5. Punch-in.  6. Set-up computer network.  7. Check e-mails multiple times throughout the day and answer them. 8. Record at least four oral history tapes and transfer them to mp3 and CD. 9. Collect newspaper clippings about the organization. 10. Help translate Polish language documents. 11. Answer today’s research requests. 12. Sort medical files. 13. Organize photographs. 14. Work the reception/reference desk. 15. Go to lunch. 16. Organize storage room. 17. Work on writing an article. 18. Check-in with social media sites. 19. Drive home. 20. Prepare dinner. 21 Eat Dinner. 22. Watch one hour of T.V. 23. Do a yoga program. 24. Go grocery shopping. 25. Go to bed.

For most of us in this day and age a typical day consists of multiple tasks like the plan above and leaves us little time for relaxation and a moment to think let alone time for helping others. Many of you may be asking, “How can I become a mentor if I can’t even get everything I have to do in a day finished?”  I believe everyone can make an adjustment to their life if they truly want to even if it is just for an hour a day. Can you spare an hour of your day to become a mentor to a fellow informational professional just starting out or a student in library school?

Maybe you can record that favorite show you want to see and watch it later. Maybe you can call your friend on Saturday instead of tonight. Maybe you can share that task in the library you have to do with a mentee and teach them in the process. Hey, maybe that favorite show can be a ground breaker for meeting a mentee. Perhaps a mentee could offer insight into that article your writing.

If you could set aside one hour a day to teach somebody else you could make a big difference. With today’s technology we are more connected to each other than ever. We are also more disconnected. Now that we cannot always see those we deal with we have left a good number of people to their own devices (literally). Show someone that you care about their success and that they are not alone. Take the time become a mentor today! Visit http://uny.sla.org/students for more information.

Please join us for our spring meeting.

Digital (In)security:
Protecting our Libraries, Networks, and Identities

Date: Friday, 26 April Time: 8:30-3:00 Location: Century House, Latham, NY (map) Plan on attending this exciting, one-day conference with presentations on online reputation management, balancing security and privacy in higher education, and cyber security and hacktivist threats. Our presenters include academics, information technologists and the Director of the New York State Office of Cyber Security. In addition to the conference on Friday, please join us for the Networking Dinner (Dutch treat) on Thursday evening, 25 April.

Registration

SLA Members $50 (early bird, by 4/1/13 – $40)
Non-members $65 (early bird, by 4/1/13 – $55)
Students/retired/unemployed $30 (early bird, by 4/1/13 – $25)  – Apply to be a student shadow and attend for free!
Early bird rates apply to registrations and payments received before 3 April.

Full schedule and program details.

Date: Wednesday, 13 February
Time: 6:30 pm
Location: Playdium Bowling Center in Albany
To RSVP please contact David Colp.

UNYSLA is making plans for the Capital Region members including students (and anyone from other areas who would like to attend) for a bowling get-together on the day before Valentine’s Day, Wednesday, February 13th at 6:30 PM at the Playdium Bowling Center in Albany. We will need to have official count of attendees so that we can confirm with the Playdium how many lanes we need to reserve. Please RSVP to David Colp by mid-January.

It will be five bowlers per lane. Space is limited. UNYSLA will pick up the tab on the shoe rental, one pizza, and one pitcher of soda for the first two lanes.
We hope we will see you there!

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By Jessica Stewart

Late morning brought to light the decisions of the Beck v. Cambridge University lawsuit between Georgia State University (GSU) and three publishers including Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Sage Publishing, and the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC).

Returning for a second year to discuss the recent decision issued in a 350-page document analyzing each article in question was Philip Frankel, attorney with the law firm Bond Shoeneck & King here in Syracuse, NY. For those of you familiar with the fair use doctrine, you know that each fair use lawsuit must be examined on a case-by-case basis using the four factors of fair use (See http://research.library.gsu.edu/content.php?pid=266494&sid=2206454). In this case, Mr. Frankel explained that the publishers needed to (1) prove ownership of copyright for each item and (2) prove that GSU had copied without authorization. GSU needed to prove that they had infringed under fair use for every book and article in question, which was about ninety-nine items under the publishers’ initial claims. The publishers, however, had failed to provide evidence of copyright ownership for about one third of the claims, which as a result led the court to allow only seventy-four items for their analysis.

In response to an attendee’s question, Mr. Frankel discussed the guidelines created for the copying of classroom materials under the fair use doctrine. Mr. Frankel explained that these guidelines were originally written with respect to word count. No more than 2,500 words of articles were to be copied, no more than 1,000 words for prose or ten percent of the total piece, and no more than one cartoon illustration was to be used under fair use. The courts in 1976, however, refused these guidelines and developed the ten percent or one chapter rule for all print texts. For instance, in the case of GSU, the courts analyzed the “The Craft of Inquiry.” The analysis reflected that only 6.25% was infringed upon by GSU, which was less than the 10% under the court’s rule. Mr. Frankel mentioned how arbitrary this ruling is, and based on many attendees’ reactions they couldn’t have agreed more.

If courts use arbitrary rules written within guidelines not included in the statutes of the U.S. Copyright Law or the amendments made like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), why would we expect the general public to respect these statutes? Courts have upheld U.S. Copyright Law for the last several centuries, but can the courts keep up with the rapid evolution of technology? We continue to see publishers bringing digital libraries and electronically published texts under the scrutiny of the courts as they examine the fair use doctrine of the U.S. Copyright Act. In cases like GSU, HathiTrust, and Google Books we continue to hope for breathing room as our libraries continue to embrace the wild west of electronic publishing, digital libraries, and open access. In the words of Dr. K. Matthew Dames who visited later in the afternoon, “This is it. At present, this is the most interesting time in our history for copyright law, and specifically in publishing.” What will you do to get your library involved?

For more see Jill Hurst-Wahl’s post: http://hurstassociates.blogspot.com/

Jessica Stewart with UNYSLA President Elect, Jim Del Rosso

Jessica Stewart is currently pursuing her Masters of Science degree in Library and Information Science with a specialization in School Media at the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University and graduating in May 2013. With a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Communications, Jessica worked as a coordinator in feature film production in Los Angeles before returning to school. With a passion for educating today’s youth and professionals in and out of the library field, her interests include primary source instruction, digital libraries, web design, video production, digital and written storytelling, Internet safety, and copyright law (specifically fair use).

The 2011 UNYSLA Annual Report is now available on our wiki.

By Kai Li

As the last session of the “Lawyers, Librarians, and Pirates” conference organized by Upstate New York Chapter of SLA, K. Matthew Dames, who is currently the Copyright & Information Policy Adviser in Syracuse University, gave an insightful and informative presentation about copyright, the construct of policy, the shift of paradigms as well as how libraries can survive in such an environment.

By tracing the US history since 1970s, Mr. Dames stated that after intellectual property replaced manufacturing as the foundation of the US economy, intellectual actually took the form of traditional property, namely, intellectual property became something that can be owned and controlled exclusively, which is still the case nowadays. In order to gain a bigger market share across the world, American businesses and government constructed the idea of piracy and push the concept to other countries, which resulted the effect that is called “normalization of copyright laws” by the presenter.

On the other hand, the culture in the library is characterized as free and as transparent as possible. So the presenter identifies the conflicts between the piracy model as well as the free model in the libraries. Even though the side of libraries seems to win in recent events like Cambridge University Press v. Georgia State University, Authors Guild v. HathiTrust as well as Random House’s recent claim that libraries own their eBooks, it is clear that the distribution chain of digital contents doesn’t necessarily include any middleman, libraries being one of them; and what’s more, middlemen are actually being killed in the market.

For Mr. Dames, since the reformation of copyright law is almost impossible based on his observation, the only way library can survive in the market, or even reverse the market, is to adopt the Open Access model. But since the future of Open Access is totally open, and it’s almost certain to come in the future, recently, Copyright Clearance Center are helping publishers to transform from traditional publishing models to Open Access model, because publishers understand that, the only way to predict the future is to create it, which is exactly what libraries should do in order to play a bigger role in tomorrow’s world of digital content.

Another point Mr. Dames made is that libraries have the furthest distance away from publishers, however, they are also the nearest to library members in the chain. As a result, libraries should figure out how to better serve the members. And moreover, libraries should become publishers themselves, not only in order to take control of the contents, but also to become more familiar with the general process of publishing.

Kai Li is a first year MLIS student in iSchool, Syracuse University. He was a cataloger in Capital Library of China for five years before he came to the United States. He is interested in various topics in this field, including metadata, eBooks and all the innovations in libraries. Follow him on Twitter @Nalsi.

Elections for the 2013 UNYSLA executive board have ended and we are pleased to announce that the following individuals were elected.

Jenna Mayotte – President-Elect

Ken Bolton – Vendor Relations

Ruth Owens – Treasurer

As a result of the election, Virginia Young will take over for Jenna Mayotte as Secretary for the remainder of her term.

The four new board members will begin their terms in January 2013.