The Library Copyright Institute is a project to develop a program of systematic, deep instruction in copyright law for librarians. The Institute is specifically targeted at training librarians at institutions with fewer resources and no copyright expert on staff. The premise of the Institute is that we’re all better off when the whole library community is widely and deeply engaged with the legal issues that most directly affect our ability to help users. Regardless of your institution, we all need to be able to confidently apply fair use, understand licenses, and assess public domain status. Having fewer resources should not mean that the beneficial rights granted by copyright law are unavailable to librarians, researchers, teachers, and students at those institutions.
The inaugural Library Copyright Institute was hosted from July 24-26, 2019 at NC State University’s James B. Hunt Memorial Library. Since then, we have actively worked with a number of partners to develop follow-on versions of the Institute, to be hosted both in North Carolina and in other regions around the United States. Our model aims to remain as financially open and accessible as possible to librarians at all types of institutions regardless of funding. Our current model includes a mix of live virtual instruction with expert instructors from around the United States, combined with a capstone in-person training. If you are interested in the Library Copyright Institute or would like to explore hosting a version of the Institute near you, please contact us at anne_gilliland@unc.edu.
Brought to you by a team of librarians and copyright specialists at Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, North Carolina Central University and NC State University. You can read more about the principal investigators and the background of the project here.
