Collections

Dis-owning collections

Lorcan 1 min read

It is now conventional to make a distinction between what libraries own (e.g. books, DVDs, …) and what they license (e.g. e-journals).
However, we can only use ‘own’ in a circumscribed way. This has been made clearer in the mass digitization projects. Libraries cannot do as they wish with the digitized copies of copyrighted material. And we know that in most library collections, a large part, maybe a majority part, is still covered by copyright.
What the library in fact ‘owns’ is the cost of managing the physical materials and of making them available to users. They do not ‘own’ the content, and are limited in what they can do with it.
In fact, they may end up licensing the very content that they thought they owned once it has been digitized.

Share
Comments
More from LorcanDempsey.net
icon

Lorcan Dempsey dot Net

The social, cultural and technological contexts of libraries, services and networks

Great! You’ve successfully signed up.

Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.

You've successfully subscribed to LorcanDempsey.net.

Success! Check your email for magic link to sign-in.

Success! Your billing info has been updated.

Your billing was not updated.