Copyright
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This page provides a very general overview of what you need to do to comply with U.S. copyright law regarding interlibrary loan borrowing on behalf of library users. Be sure to consult with your organization's legal counsel for any questions about copyright and your library and about any existing policies.
Provide notice of copyright regulations
- A "Warning Concerning Copyright Restrictions" sign
should be prominently posted wherever you accept
interlibrary loan requests and on interlibrary loan
request forms:
Notice Warning Concerning Copyright Restrictions
The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material.
Quoted from Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians. Circular 21. United States Copyright Office.
Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement.
This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of Copyright Law.
(102 Kb | Web Rev. June
1998)
Indicate copyright compliance on DOCLINE requests
- The Routing Profile in your DOCLINE institutional record has a section that indicates CONTU Guidelines or Copyright Law. The default is "Guidelines". You can change this when you create a DOCLINE request.
- Use CONTU Guidelines when your library does not currently subscribe to a periodical title AND when the material requested was published within five years of the date of the request.
- Use Copyright Law when the material was published earlier than five years prior to the date of the request, OR if your library subscribes to the material and for some reason it is not available (e.g., at the bindery or not yet received), OR the article is in the public domain. (This applies to material for which copyright has expired, material that was intentionally placed in the public domain, or material published by a U.S. Federal Government employee as part of his/her work.)
Review borrowing activity and records
- According to CONTU guidelines, keep records for borrowing requests for three years beyond the calendar year in which the request was filled. Discard these records after three years.
- Within any calendar year, examine those requests for which you followed CONTU Guidelines. If you have requested more than five articles from the past five years of a given periodical title, you may have exceeded CONTU guidelines.
- If your requests exceed CONTU guidelines, you may need to pay copyright royalties to the copyright owner or to a rights manager such as the Copyright Clearance Center, or you may need to purchase a copy through a document delivery service that pays royalty fees to the copyright owner.
- DOCLINE Report 1-8, "Ranked List of Serial Titles Requested" will help you identify titles that might exceed CONTU Guidelines.
Copyright Resources
- Copyright Law: Medical Library Association Position Statements and FAQs
- The Copyright Law and the Health Sciences Librarian (2007) is available through the Members Section of the Medical Library Association website. To view, you must login at Member Login.
- United
States Copyright Office - Click on Publications to
see titles like Copyright
Basics (Information Circular 1) and Reproduction
of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians
102 Kb (Information
Circular 21) or click on Law
- Copyright Clearance Center - you can pay copyright fees and get permission from the CCC
