Why should we care about copyright of state government information? Isn’t it all in the public domain? It’s public information just like federal government information, right? WRONG!
The ability of states to assert copyright over their publications still exists to this day. The consequences of this significantly impacts and impedes knowledge institutions' ability to digitize historic state publications, capture and archive born digital publications, and freely disseminate them to the public via library catalogs or digital repositories.
Bernadette Bartlett, Library of Michigan, and Kris Kasianovitz, Stanford University, have embarked on a project to demonstrate the constraints that copyright law places upon citizens, researchers, academic institutions and digital repositories, like HathiTrust, to release scanned post-1923 state government publications into the public domain as well as chart a paths forward to bring about change to this little discussed but major issue. Join us for a lively discussion of our project and find out how you can help!
Program Take-Aways
- Participants are aware of the problems libraries face as stewards of state government information collections, especially when they want to reformat from print to digital or capture born digital materials.
- Participants are introduced to the Free State Government Information project in order to generate support and grassroots connections that will result in fruitful policy clarification or change."
