[ILL-L] ILL-L Digest, Vol 46, Issue 15

Tue Dec 15 13:24:32 EST 2009

Hi Jason, 

Thanks for your thoughts.  That is my understanding re: PDFs as well--in terms of not giving patrons an electronic copy of a PDF but giving them a print out.  Good point re: articles being posted online illegally.  

--Ledja

Ledja Cullen, MLIS
Reference & Evening Services Librarian
Interlibrary Loans & Course Reserves
Golden Gate University - Law Library
536 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
Tel: (415) 442-6689
Fax: (415) 512-9395
Email: lcullen at ggu.edu 
http://www.ggu.edu/lawlibrary 

>>> "Potapoff,Jason" <JPOTAPOF at nait.ca> 12/15/2009 9:50 AM >>>

I don't want to talk on behalf of a director of another library but by take on it is...

I would imagine mostly for legal reasons.  Just because an article is available on the internet for free that doesn't mean it's available legally. So obviously a library doesn't want to be sending their patrons to a link for an article that breaks copyright. It is not always clear if the PDF online/link etc. is legal so the director probably does not want the ILL department to make that assessment and sending the information over to the copyright department to determine if it is legal or not is likely too cumbersome to be worth it. So I imagine he is making a policy to ensure that the library is erroring on the side of caution.

There is also the case that it is not clear that we are even legally allowed to send a PDf of an article directly to a patron. Depending on who you talk to we break copyright if we send the article to the end patron in electronic form, receiving the article electronically from another library as a PDF is ok it's the equivalent of faxing it, as long as the library prints it out and gives the patron the printed article with the proper copyright notices attached to it.  I haven't been able to find a definitive answer to this but the people who make these types of policy decisions for my Library have decided to go with that interpretation of copyright.  So unless I can find something substantial that clearly shows differently I have to follow those guidelines. 

In the end what this means is if I find an article online as a PDF (or the article is sent to me as a PDF) I have to print it out and give the patron the printed copy. Providing a direct URL to the article's PDF is a grey area but I am not supposed to do it unless I have to (normally I would give them a link to the site or article's page and tell the patron how to access the PDF themselves) I also have to be reasonably sure that the PDF online is legally available that way and if it's not then obviously I can't give the patron a link to it.  Which in practice this means I search online only as a last resort to minimize the chases I end up accessing an article "illegally". Some last resort situations are: If I can't get it using conventional means, if the article is really large and I won't want another library scanning in/copying that many pages and me printing that many pages, or if the first few libraries I tried to get it from were unable to send it and now I am running out of time before the patron's need by date arrives so I have to go to the web for the quicker turn around.

Granted I am also coming from this from the Canadian side of the border and our copyright restrictions are a bit different than those in the States. So it's possible that in the United States PDFs are not as restricted.  The last I heard there is a chance that Canadian copyright law is going to become stricter and we might have to go back to using only faxes (not even Ariel) or worse yet not even by fax and can only mail physical photocopies.   Although I do not think it is likely to go that way but you never know. The copyright debate in Canada has been convoluted lately.. 

Jason Potapoff 
Interlibrary Loans Technician - NAIT Library 
Room U310 
11762 - 106 Street 
Edmonton, Alberta Canada T5G 3H3 
P 780.471.8780   F 780.491.3014 E illo at nait.ca 
Odyssey: 192.197.128.142/ILL
Ariel: 192.197.128.142 
www.nait.ca 
NAIT - An Institute of Technology Committed to Student Success 

-----Original Message-----

Message: 7
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:38:12 -0800
From: "Ledja Cullen" <lcullen at ggu.edu>
Subject: Re: [ILL-L] A Summary of Scientific Findings on Adverse
EffectsonIndoor Environments on Student's Health, 
To: "Interlibrary Loan Listserv" <ill-l at webjunction.org>
Message-ID: <4B263FBD.3B93.009E.0 at ggu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Wonder what your director's reason for this is?

Ledja Cullen, MLIS
Reference & Evening Services Librarian
Interlibrary Loans & Course Reserves
Golden Gate University - Law Library
536 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
Tel: (415) 442-6689
Fax: (415) 512-9395
Email: lcullen at ggu.edu 
http://www.ggu.edu/lawlibrary 

>>> "Reed, Sue" <sue.reed at sos.mo.gov> 12/7/2009 10:36 AM >>>

Hello All:

Thank you for the links and PDF?s found ?freely? on the web, that have
been sent to me.

My Director has asked that I not send/provide links/PDF?s to articles
which are available ?freely? on the web to our patrons or ask the author
of the article to send a PDF.   Unfortunitly, this has added to the
length of time my patrons are waiting for articles if we don?t have the
article in one of our databases.  I can only provide articles to my
patrons which are filled through ILL or through one of our databases.  

I?ve been looking for documentation which  states, providing links or
PDF?s of articles ?freely? available on the web or the author is
considered a best practice for ILL.   Has anyone come across an article
or statement which would help me include this practice as a ?Best
Practice for ILL??

Anyway, I still need the article filled through ILL.

Thank you for any help you can provide.
Sue
Sue Reed
Office of the Secretary of State
Missouri State Library, Reference Services Division
600 W. Main Street, Room 205
Jefferson City, MO  65109
573-751-3596
FAX: 573-526-1142
sue.reed at sos.mo.gov 

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