(click picture to enlarge)
(click picture to enlarge)
Prof. Dr. Ani Gergova,
President of the Union of Librarian and Information Services of the Union of
Librarian and Information Services Officers, Bulgaria, welcomed the guests from
14 countries, and she introduced the featured speaker, Dr. Cornish.
Graham P. Cornish, President of the UK Library
Association, joined the British Library in 1969. He has taken various positions
in the British Library. Since 1979 he has been responsible for copyright at
British Library and has been an active
participant in the International Federation of Librarians and in several other
professional organizations in the United Kingdom.
Professor Cornish:
He thanked Dr. Dimchev, the
British Consulate, and brought greetings from the United Kingdom Library
Association.
This evening we will explore
3 jigsaw puzzles, including What’s a library there for? The basic philosophy
is to make available the complete created works of human kind to whoever needs
access to it. The creativity of the human mind, if inventing something new, is a
total picture. It is made up of many little pixels to make up a larger puzzle,
which is a whole piece. It is the librarian’s job to deliver any part of the
puzzle that somebody wants. If you view the human body as one piece, if you lose
even one small piece, you do not have a picture. The librarian sees that the
picture is not spoiled.
Here’s the first problem
of copyright. Copyright law is there to protect the creativity of the human
mind. We know that there are limits to this, but this is the main idea. This
means that when we are trying to deliver the entire puzzle, we may meet several
obstacles--one of which is the right of the creator to protect her/his work.
Essentially librarians work with the creation of a property. In the past we have
been able to manage this situation because of the lack of technology. Copying
part of a book did not harm. Neither could it be prevented by the owner. This is
recognized by the laws of many countries, which allow people to use copyrighted
material as long as he/she doesn’t violate the interests of the author. When
material is made available on the Internet, the creator has the opportunity to
decide how it may be used, e.g., a person may put a paper on a web site and may
not mind what someone does with it. It’s of no economic benefit. But he would
be annoyed if someone removed his name and put it on another web site.
Increasingly items may be
put on the Internet to make money or created with limitations. This may be done
by a form of contract to which you agree before you start the work. Increasingly
you can only look up a work if you agree to pay. The payment may be made to your
credit card. We are seeing a change in the situation. As librarians, we offer
access to the Internet for our users in the same way that we have done with
printed materials. How can we do this? Printed materials are bought, and we know
how much they cost; we put them on the shelf for anyone to use. With the
Internet we provide a PC in the library and allow anyone to use it. What do we
do when someone says, “I have found this web site and want to use it but I’m
asked for a credit card.” You can use it only when you pay or will the library
pay.? Library budgets are not growing. We face a situation where access to
information is becoming more and more expensive. We cannot deliver all of the
information we should to the reader. Part of the jigsaw puzzle is being spoiled
and there is no way around this.
The speaker has worked with
devices to limit access to materials, so we face a challenge. There is a view
that the library should pay for everything or only make available things for
which there is no charge. Some people refer to the library as a supermarket, but
it isn’t. Supermarkets keep on their shelves only things that make a profit.
They arrange things so that they’ll be found and bought, whether people want
them or not. Libraries arrange things so that people find what they need and we
cannot collect only those things that make a profit. We collect what we think
people will need without consideration of the cost. We are a profession which is
neutral as far as the materials are concerned. That neutrality means that we
won’t lose any part of the puzzle. Copyright is already spoiling part of the
puzzle, as noted.
There are other puzzles too.
As libraries collect materials without a bias, so we offer our services to all
embers of the community. If a resident is entitled to use the public library we
deliver a service. This is also true in a college, a government organization, or
a commercial company. It is a neutral profession--we collect without fee or
favor. We provide access without fee or favor. Again, copyright will spoil the
second puzzle--humankind. We have looked at not providing material because it is
too expensive. We consider the situation where we provide information regardless
of form, but not to all of our users. This is a very new situation for libraries
because if items are priced according to use, and the library cannot afford to
carry the cost, then we shall ask the user to pay. That works okay for industry
or commerce. It may work for government, who seems to have the money if they
want. What does this do to the academic community or the general public? If
working in a large public library where your ideal is to provide access to
everybody, and we have the same problem as before, a user wants access to
material and must pay for it. Here we have a new situation because one reader
may say, “There’s no problem; I’ll pay.” Yet another reader may be
unemployed or cannot pay. Do we say to the person who can’t pay that we
can’t provide the material? Who will pay? The owner offsets the cost with a
fee. We either deprive users of right to access or we must develop new economic
models to pay. If we pay to do this properly, we will spoil the puzzle of
humanity.
There is a third puzzle to
explore. Traditionally there have been librarians who work in museums, archives,
and libraries, and we retain our interest in these different aspects of the
profession. We have our professional associations. In the world of the Internet
the user is indifferent to the differences between archives, museums and
libraries. The user doesn’t care where the information comes from. They sit at
their computer and search web sites, receiving text and sounds--whatever they
want. They don’t care about the source. We are ourselves a jigsaw puzzle, and
it may be that because we don’t work together we may fail to deliver all the
information people need. We want to retain our special professional skills, and
we don’t want to become a solid mass of “infomaniacs.” But we do need to
pull together on those issues that affect access to information. Once again
copyright is an important issue where we should work together, to make sure that
the laws of our country are best for both user and owner of information.
That’s not easy to do because of our histories.
As the president of a
professional library association, he has found it exciting to work on this issue
and to awaken an interest in copyright. In the end we must solve this problem.
Our role is to make available what people want when they want it. That is the
benefit of all of us. If access to information is denied, creativity is limited
and we shall have impinged creativity. People have rights because they have used
their skills to create, but in the end they create for the benefit of everybody.
Copyright law must not prevent access. The nature of the library will change; it
will no longer be simply a physical place but will make available the range of
human creation. People say to him libraries are old fashioned, and he points to
the screen in the library, and notes that technological information systems call
out for the skills of librarians to organize information, help people find
information, give advice, and deliver information to people in the way and at a
time that they want. At the beginning of the 21st century we have the
opportunity to manage a new kind of library. Let’s not constrain access to
information.
When you start a puzzle you
don’t know where the pieces will fit. On the box is a picture and you know
what the whole thing looks like. That is the greatest skill librarians have--the
ability to see the total picture. Let’s make sure that everyone has a chance
to see that picture with us.
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