Charleston Seminar: Legal Issues in Libraries

Presented in conjunction with UNC Chapel Hill School of Library and Information Science. 

Librarians are faced with legal issues every day but, without knowing what to look, for it can be easy to miss or misunderstand them.  Conventional wisdom that offers easy answers can be tempting but may provide a false sense of security.  Even worse, by trying to follow rules we don’t really understand, we may unnecessarily impede the library’s ability to do good work.  Through a series of discussions and group activities, this day-long session, will prepare librarians to make informed, thoughtful decisions in key legal areas that are becoming ever more crucial in institutional settings.

Instructors:

• William Cross, Director, Copyright and Digital Scholarship, North Carolina State University

William M. Cross is the Director of the Copyright and Digital Scholarship Center at North Carolina State University where he provides advice and instruction to campus stakeholders on copyright, licensing, and scholarly communication issues. As a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Will earned an M.A. in Technology & Communication, a J.D. in Law, and an M.S.L.S. in Library Science. Before joining the Copyright and Digital Scholarship Center, Will worked in academic and law libraries, in constitutional litigation, and at the North Carolina Court of Appeals. He serves as an adjunct instructor in the UNC School of Information and Library Science and lectures nationally on free expression, copyright, and scholarly communication. Will has been quoted in publications such as The Chronicle of Higher Education, Library Journal, and Techdirt and publishes regularly in law and library journals on topics ranging from the pedagogy of legal education for librarians to First Amendment analysis of the regulation of video games.

• Kevin Smith, Director of Copyright & Scholarly Communications, Duke University

As Duke University’s first Director of Copyright & Scholarly Communications, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing.  He is a librarian and an attorney (admitted to the bar in Ohio and North Carolina) and also holds a graduate degree in religion from Yale University.  At Duke, Kevin serves on the University’s Intellectual Property Board and Digital Futures Task Force, and he convenes the Open Access Advisory Panel.  He is the current Chair of the ACRL’s Research and Scholarly Environment Committee and serves on the SPARC Steering Committee.  His highly-regarded web log on scholarly communications discusses copyright and publication in academia, and he is a frequent speaker on those topics.  

• Facilitated by Ann Okerson, Senior Advisor, CRL

Ann Okerson joined the Center for Research Libraries in fall 2011 as Senior Advisor on Electronic Strategies, working with that organization to reconfigure and redirect various existing programs into digital mode.  Previous experience includes 15 years as Associate University Librarian for Collections & International Programs at Yale University; prior to that she worked in the commercial sector, and also for 5 years as Senior Program Officer for Scholarly Communications at the Association of Research Libraries.  Upon joining Yale, she organized the Northeast Research libraries consortium (NERL), a group of 28 large and over 80 smaller libraries negotiating for electronic information.  She is one of the active, founding spirits of the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC). Activities include projects, publications, advisory boards, and speaking engagements worldwide, as well as professional awards.  She is a leader in licensing electronic scholarly resources, having developed a model license adapted widely by libraries and organizations.  Over the years, Okerson has also been active in IFLA and has served on its Governing Board and as Chair of its Professional Activities.

Following with her love of both international and cooperative projects, she is also currently working with CERN's SCOAP3 project, as the National Contact Person (NCP) for US academic libraries.