This is another guest post by a fellow presenter at the IFLA off-site meeting on Copyright Education held in Wroclaw Poland in August. I first met Sara Benson at the ACRL conference in Baltimore in March this year when I was presenting a lightning talk about creative approaches to copyright education. Sara is the Copyright Librarian and Assistant Professor at the University Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Illinois. She has a Master’s of Law degree from the University of California Boalt Hall School of Law, a J.D. from the University of Houston and will graduate this December with an MLIS from the iSchool at the University of Illinois. Prior to beginning her position as Copyright Librarian in 2016, Sara taught at the University of Illinois College of Law for ten years as a Lecturer of Law. Sara writes…..
When you wake up in the morning, is copyright on your mind? Well, most days it is on mine and one of my goals is to create opportunities to educate everyone and anyone who is interested about copyright. And, why wouldn’t we be interested in copyright? It impacts all of us on a daily basis. For instance, did you know that if you tweet out a link to this very blog post you are exercising your right to fair use? Well, now you do and I bet that makes you want to know even more about copyright, am I right? I thought so.
Well, now that I’ve got your attention, I’d like to point out that I have a fun and easily accessible podcast about common copyright issues that is aimed at everyday folks just like you. It’s called “©hat” (read copyright chat) and it is available on itunes or right here at this link through the University of Illinois Library. One of my favorite episodes of ©hat featured my friend Gordon Speagle in a fun game of “two truths and a lie.” I challenged him to guess which one of the three statements about copyright that I read aloud was a lie and hilarity ensued. Well, I won’t give away any spoilers . . . you can listen to the episode right now if you like. I’ll wait.
Okay, now that you’ve had a chance to explore some common copyright myths, are you hankering for more? I thought so. Well, today is your lucky day! I’ve also created a YouTube channel with short videos explaining important copyright concepts. Initially, these videos were created to accompany a course taught by a colleague in History here at the University, but I quickly realized that they can be used for many different purposes. One helpful purpose is to use the videos to “flip” the classroom when training library liaisons so that the information from the lecture portion of the meeting is taken care of independently before the session. In that manner, the entire meeting time can be used for interactive group work and hands on activities. Actually, a longer article will soon be available on this very topic from the Journal of Copyright Education and Librarianship and was inspired by an IFLA off site conference (Models for Copyright Education in Information Literacy Programs) where Jane Secker, Chris Morrison, and I had the pleasure to participate in Poland.
But, what else can these handy videos be used for? For you, of course. If you have five to ten minutes to spare and want to learn about some copyright exceptions or your fair use rights, then take a moment to visit my YouTube page and learn a thing or two. If there’s a topic that you wish I would cover, please do let me know!
Finally, if you want even more information about copyright, you can visit my many library guides ranging from information about publishing your thesis or dissertation, to fair use, to information about putting materials on course reserve. You can find my most popular library guide, the “copyright reference guide” at this link. I hope you find it useful and share it with others. It has been a pleasure sharing some of my materials with you. I hope to “chat” with you virtually through my podcast soon!
Copyright Literacy 