CONNECTIONS
a newsletter from the libraries to the faculty of The Claremont Colleges
SPRING 1998 Volume 8 Number 2
••••• • MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR
FEATURES
LEARNING ROOMı DEDICATION
VIRTUAL REFERENCE
COPYRIGHT LAWı AND LIBRARYı RESERVES
STAFF NEWS
CLAREMONT DISCOURSE: New Lecture Series
FREQUENTLY ASKEDı QUESTIONS
NEW WEB
FOCUS ON COLLECTIONSı
LIBRARY
COUNCIL
DENISON
From time to time, faculty members ask, "what can we do to help you improve
library services to us?" If I had three wishes, they would be these;
first, I wish faculty would more active communicate needs to us. This could occur
on at least two levels. On the most basic level, each of you could let me know when
we fail you as well as when you think we are doing things correctly. Some managers
refer to this as " maximizing complaints;" I prefer to think of it as maximizing
opportunities for us to learn how we can enhance or improve our services. On a more
formal level, you can support the work of the Library Council either by maintaining
contact with your representative or by becoming actively involved as one of your
Coli g ' s two representatives to the Council. I relv on Council members to advise me
on important matters ranging from faculty borrowing privileges to allocation of funds
for purchase of materials.
Second, I wish we could work together to find ways for library subject specialists to
become more involved in academic planning at each of your Colleges. In a dynamic
environment such as that of these Colleges, there are constant challenges in curriculum
emphasis; addition of academic programs, majors, or degrees; and new areas of
research interest. Often, we find out about these after the fact and at a point where you
and your students are frustrated because the library to provide the
information resources needed for instruction and research. Participation by librarians
on curriculum committees and other committees charged with academic planning)" at
each College would go a long way toward improving communication about what library
resources are currently available for support of specific programs, what additional
resources would be desirable or necessary for new programs, and where the Libraries
can reduce or eliminate their commitment to supporting resources that are no longer
integral to the Colleges' curricula.
Third, I wish we could more directly involve librarians in ensuring that your students
have the information - seeking skills that are increasingly essential for successful
fulfillment of their academic programs and life- long learning. We have available , In
active library instruction program that includes library initiated workshops as well as
course- specific instruction. Research indicates that the most effective library
instruction occurs at the point when students need to use the information being taught
to complete a specific assignment. When students haven't been given an opportunity
to learn the basic skills they need to complete assignments requiring use of library
resources, they end up frustrated. We now have a state - of - the art Learning Room that
can be used for bands - on instruction in navigating the World Wide Web and in
capitalizing on the many resources available through the Libraries.
The point of these wishes, of course, is to help the libraries better serve you
and your students. I would be happy to hear from you your ideas on how these wishes
might be fulfIlled.•
Bonnie Clemens Director of Libraries, ext. 18045 bclemens@ rocky, claremont. edu
HONNOLD/ MUDD SEELEY G. MUDD SCIENCE SPRAGUE
• New Learning Room Dedicated
On \ wednesday, Ivlarch 4, the Libraries. Keck foundation . Learning Room was dedicated. Explaining why this new facility is so important, cue Executive Vice President ' Mitch Dor er sa. id, " From a
The W. M. Keck Foundation Learning Room
practical standpoint this
room will dramatically increase the ability of our students and faculty to meet the academic challenges of today's high tech environment. Symbolically, the completion of this room marks a landmark step toward the learning environment of the 21 st century"
The Learning Room provides state of
the art audio visual and network technologies for instruction that will allow the Libraries to help students find their way through the increasingly bewildering maze of choices for locating, analyzing, and using information. Students will be able to learn to use library and information resources in highly interactive, hands on classes. The teaching librarian's demonstration
of the use of databases can be projected onto a large screen or directly onto every student's monitor. After students have been introduced to one or two databases, they can tryout their own searches to discover which resources best meet their particular information needs. Each workstation provides space for students to work collaboratively with one or two others. And if students at one workstation make a valuable discovery or encounter an interesting problem, the librarian can project their individual screen for the whole class to
see.
Those of us who provide library instruction are very excited about the possibilities the Learning Room offers to enhance our teaching and our students learning. During the rest of this semester and through the summer, we will be reviewing our instructional services. We will be further developing the series of classes we offer each semester on library and information resources and looking for ways to make the classes you schedule with us more productive for you and your students.
1f you have suggestions, I would be very happy to hear from you.
The Learning Room is a key addition to the Libraries' instructional resources. I hope you will plan now to take advantage of it by including library research instruction in your courses next fall. If you have questions about what those sessions might include or about how we can best work together to meet your students' needs, I hope you will be in touch ' with me.•
Gale Burrow Reference, ext. 73987
Virtual Reference Collection
At the Reference Desk and lt1 conversations at various functions, you have often sugg sted to us that one of the jobs we should take on here in the Libraries is to tame the internet. Catalog it, organize it, make it usable, believe it or not, we have actually attempted just that with the Virtual Reference Collection, new on the Libraries' home page this semester. admit, we did not take on the entire internet, just a small, manageable portion. But we have attempted to make it easier for you to find facts at any hour of the day or night, from your office, classroom or home.
Wie have created a gateway to do; useful links which we have organized in categories such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, directories, country information, maps, currency convertrs, statistics, time/ date information and weather. Some of the Virtual Reference Collection sites are services that the libraries pay for, such as Britannica Online. Most are free materials that an organization or academic institution has put up on the web, and we have simply created a link to the sites. We hope these links will connect you to sites that contain information you need with a minimum of effort.
By gathering these resources all in one place, we hope we will save you the time and frustration of seeking them out each time you need them.
The Virtual Reference Collection can be
Libraries' home page, Let us know how this service works for you, and let us know if yOul find any great sites that you think we should include. Send vour suggestions via email to
CONNECTIONS is published and distributed during the Fall and Spring semesters.
Contributors: Sarah Bdlrichard, Gale Burrow Bonnie Clemens, Carrie Marsh, Kimberly Mosshart, James Otto, Adam Rosenkranz, Cindy Snyder
Editors: Gale Burrow and Ebersole
Connections URL: ı http:// voxlibris. c1m: 1llont. edu/ NewsE\ ents/ ı
Suggestions/ comments, contact: ı Glenda Elx · rsolc, Graphic Communicationı Specialist, TIle Honnold/ i\ ludd l1bauT, ı e, t 73958, !, relx: rsole@ rocky. darcmont. e- dll. ı
2 / CONNECTIONS a newsletterfrom the libran · es to the faculty of The Claremont Colleges right
Copyright Law and Library Reserves: What Faculty Need to Know
At first glance library reserves may not seem connected with copvright law. The photocopying that you d to put portions of worl, s on physical reserve, and thc scanning required to place thosc same materials on electronic reserve would not seem to amount to infringement
upon someone's copycight. It is not helpful that copyright is arguably the murkiest area of our law. It is an area of our law about which significant differences
of opinion exist, an area with little case law establishing firm precedents concerning educational institutions, and therefore, the area with less certainty and more myths than any other about which educators need to know. Add to this inchoate cauldron of
purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching ( including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include (
1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
( 2)
the nature of the copyrighted work;
( 3)
the amount and substantiality of the portion
used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
( 4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
We have nothing to worry about in reo- ard to ( 1) as all of OLl[ uses will be nonprofit and educational. Factor ( 2) regards whether a work is largely a compilation of facts or is in some degree imaginative and original. Items put on course reserve could be either, with the former crranted less scope of copyright protection than the latter. The areas about which we need to be concerned most are (:)) and ( 4), touching how much of a copyrighted work is copied in relation to its total size and how such copying could detrimentally affeet the right of a copyright holder to profit from his or her
confusion the ingredient of
Just because copyrighted work.
electronic copying, storage
In- class instruction
matenals are usedfor
and transmission and the
lies behind how the fair
uncertain new territory edttcationalpurposes does
use factors have been
involved here, and we have not mean at!} use is fair.
interpreted in an edua
situation that is tempting
to ignore- · - yet one to be ignored at our pt · . rjl.
I. et's start with thc biggest myth about copying for educational purposes:
" 1/ J al1l pb() t() c{) jJ) il<~ Jin' pm- e! y edllcalional, n() I:/ ilr- proj! 1 jJttrjJo. ie. f, and only.( or III)' closs al/( I Ill' rel'ert'el', Ihm ( til)' {// 11() lltIt J iI- if ii legal alld Illllbin lile bOlllldJ of fair IIl'e. "
This impression needs to be corrected morc than any Other. Just because copyrighted materials arc used for educational purposes docs not mean any use is fair. Let us look at the four fair
use factors in Title 17 ( Copyright) of the
Unitcd States Code: § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and
106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for
cational context. l. ibrary reserve policy for both paper and electronic access has been shaped across the land under the concept that course reserves are an extension of and supplement
to in- class instruction and other assigned reading. C( pvright guidelines advising the conduct of instructors in their classrooms extend to the library reserve shelf and electronic reserve system.
The components of legal I-,: ruiddines can be summed up as follovvs: "{ Iiljair n. re tJuidelini'J 0/ ({) P)' 7~ gbt 1011/ alloJlJ all instmc! or,
. lor ( J . rinale academic IeI'm, to distribute to {, deh sllldent in