Digital Libraries
Collaborative Electronic Reviews
Department of Library Science and Instructional Technology
Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven CT

LSC 551-70
Fall 1999

Reviews by:
Karen Ball
Gayle Bogel
Lisa Brenner
Deborah Coretto
Sue Crego
Marilyn Geiger
Mark Gore
Dawn Higginson
Eric Jones
Dianne Lyons
Kathleen Marszycki
Robert Murphy
Kris Piecyk
Jodi Stacy
Amanda Timolat

Copyrights in Cyberspace

Reviewed by: Deborah Coretto

This article focuses on the issue of copyright infringement and the internet. It explains the purpose of copyrighting, the rights of the authors and users, as well as the most recent changes to copyright laws.

Copyright laws are written to protect the author. The difference between an author's expression and his ideas are emphasized since only expression is protected. Once material has been placed into a fixed format it is considered protected by copyright. Since computers require material to be put into digital format, this is considered a fixed format. Therefore, material found on the internet is protected under copyright laws, even if there is no copyright notice. Authors may grant permission to others to use their materials.

Unfortunately, copyright laws are open to interpretation to some extent. "Fair use," or a person's ability to use another person's work for educational purposes continues to be controversial. There are the questions of how much is being copied in relation to the rest of the work and the significance of the material in relation to the rest of the work. This article points out an interesting problem regarding copying portions of newsgroup conferences. Every contributor owns their own comments. Should each person contributing to the conversation be contacted for permission? The author suggests getting the permission just to be safe.

The internet has brought about more recent changes in copyright laws. The Copyright Act of 1998 gives people the right to copy software for maintenance purposes, provides some protection to Internet Service Providers regarding copyright infringement, and prohibits the unlawful use of using a copyright notice. Courts may impose monetary and/or jail terms for people violating these acts.

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Threaded discussion question:

Collection Maintenance

Reviewed by Deborah Coretto

This article addresses the issue of the maintenance of digital collections. Specifically, it focuses on the difficulties of maintaining "informal and dynamic" web pages.

The paper explains that traditional libraries have methods for maintaining collections, but digital libraries present a whole new set of problems. Only some of the methods used for maintaining traditional libraries can be carried over to digital libraries. The authors examine two types of libraries: the narrowly-construed and the broadly-construed library, in which he credits two other sources. The first type, having known boundaries, allows for easier control of maintenance. The second type presents problems because the material can exist anywhere in a variety of formats. It might change or disappear altogether. The library only has control of its own method of access.

Two web maintenance tools are examined that evaluate web link. The first one, MOMspider, Multi-owner Maintenance Spider, checks every link from a predefined page. The administrator is notified of broken links and pages with upcoming expiration dates. It cannot evaluate the significance of changes made to various links. The second one, Web:Lookout, also checks links, but it does so periodically. This tool does evaluate the significance of changes. An administrator can specify specific sites to be monitored for significant change.

There are disadvantages to using any digital maintenance tools. They cannot evaluate the intellectual content of the pages, and they do not address the problem of how to capture data from pages that disappear altogether. This article ends with the point that the social aspect of digital libraries needs to be considered as well as technical considerations.

Ackerman, Mark S. and Roy T. Fielding. "Collection Maintenance in the Digital Library." Web Site. http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/DL95/papers/ackerman/ackerman.html#RTFToC15

Threaded discussion question: