Copyright and ILL
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 from the Medical Library Association
The Medical Library Association makes available a wealth of information on copyright for medical librarians. You may consult any one of these resources to increase your knowledge of copyright in the library environment.
- Medical Library Association Copyright Guidelines
- Copyright and Fair Use Position Statement
- Copyright Fair Use FAQ
- Copyright and Interlibrary Loan FAQ
- Copyright Liability FAQ
- Copyright and Print Reserves FAQ
Copyright Resources from the U.S. Copyright Office
- The United States Copyright Office offers several publications for those interested in learning more about copyright.
Of particular interest for librarians may be:
- Copyright Basics (PDF) - text version also available.
- Reproductions of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians (PDF)
Copyright Clearance Center
The Copyright Clearance Center’s pay-per-use permissions service provides instant authorization to use and share content from the world's leading titles in science, technology, medicine, humanities, news, business, finance, and more.
You may use this service to get permission to:
- Photocopy material from books, newspapers, journals and other publications for use in coursepacks and classroom handouts.
- Use and share information in library reserves, interlibrary loan and document delivery services.
- Post and share content electronically in e-reserves, course management systems, e-coursepacks and other e-learning environments.
- Distribute content via e-mail or post it to your intranet, Internet and extranet sites.
- Republish an article, book excerpt or other content in your own books, journals, newsletters and other materials.
