From: Sean Andrews <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 11:34:16 -0500

Does anyone know of a history of the rise of copy centers on academic
campuses? I am curious if print services have long been separated from
something like the copyright clearance center on campus? My hunch is
that they began as a centralizing center for the costs of the now
cheaper machinery - i.e. buy a big Xerox instead of relying on 30 or
40 mimeograph machines. Now there are places where you get fliers made
or a personal printout, but mass printing is (but maybe not for long)
handled through centralized centers meant to protect universities (and
their unwitting faculty - I speak as one of the witless) from
copyright liability. Was this a result of the Kinkos case or some
other set of practices or policies?  And where did the library fit
into this?  How much of this work (IPR contracting/policing for
digital reserves) does the library now do and is it an increasing
amount?

Perhaps it is just as useful to call it "the history of the course
packet" but I'm not sure if someone has delved into that exhilarating
topic with quite the vigor one would hope.  If there is no work on
either of these things, personal/institutional anecdotes are welcome.

To summarize the questions: How does the above hypothesis compare to
your knowledge or experience on the topic? And can you give any
details about how your library has evolved in this direction?

In some ways, it seems like the main conflict in the Georgia State
University case, and its appeal, is about some publishers - and,
according to Jen Howard's piece today+, some authors - are seeing the
library as an institution that may have a very different understanding
of fair use than the people running the copy shop, who have been (in
the minds of publishers) appropriately disciplined.

Or, for another turn of the screw, the Copyright Clearance Center also
has an interest in taking it away from the librarians, or routinizing
the printshop on campus to produce clearance for IPR as it prints out
the documents on demand for students or provides them digitally if
need be.   This would be possible if there was both a fee structure
and chain of economic command that led to them being the routinizing
middlemen for all such scholarly transactions.   The library is
already being forced to deal with those publishers on the other end -
as the dutiful publishers of the scholarly journals that now comprise
the bulk of library budgets - through elaborate contractual
negotiations over access to resources they provide to the faculty free
of charge. So maybe the goal is to have the library contract for all
of the CCC content - the non Creative Commons answer to scholarly
publishing, at lest for publishers.

As they look ahead, it is clear that paying for use - which Rick
Anderson has spoken a lot about here - is a likely future for library
services. With a broad - or even uncertain, since it would be policed
at many other institutional locations - definition of fair use it is
less likely to make the necessary amount of money.  So the future of
their business model involves making the CCC the copyright registry
for higher ed, therefore able to contain the anarchic market in a
centralized negotiator that can also set the prices on fair use the
same way they have set them on per use articles.

Of course this is also exactly what the judge told them they would
need to do in order to win an appeal - they have to be able to point
to the viability and availability of the market. I'm paraphrasing,
perhaps incorrectly (please let me know), but my understanding this
aspect of her judgement was that the articles (or in this case, book
chapters) were not available in modular digital form, so even if there
was a market, the friction to buying it was increased by the fact that
the publisher didn't sell it that way. Therefore it was fair use in
some part because it was one of the few ways for the faculty to make
those digital reserves available to the students.  As a faculty
member, I would say they are late to the party since more of this
sharing is happening on Moodle now, but they need a beachhead in this
battle.

And the library is already prepared to carry out this intellectual and
political acculturation. So just as many academic publishers are
haggling over course packs, perpetual access, and ILL in relation to
digital scholarly journals and databases, they can routinize the
legalities of digital course packs. I suspect the fly in the ointment
is that fewer folks in the library are interested in performing this
role after being badgered in the other, but maybe that is just my own
misperception of the situation.

In any case, the GSU appeal appears to be much more complex than
publishers vs. the libraries. Authors in the mix make it even more
interesting. It is important to think about that factor because it is
likely in direct proportion to the holdouts on Open Access.

Sorry, that's enough for today. Consider these scribblings of a sort
of outside observer as grist for the mill. Perhaps I am wrong on every
count, but am trying to understand this transformation and the
technological, political, cultural, and economic positions the case
represents.

Thanks,

Sean Andrews

+ Jen Howard's piece on GSU appeal:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/publishers-will-appeal-e-reserves-decision-that-favored-georgia-state-u/39732?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Cf: this quote, about halfway down the page, SAGE CEO
>
> Mr. Simqu said he had personally contacted more than 50 SAGE textbook authors to sound them out on whether to appeal the decision. “All but two of the authors not only were supportive but felt very strongly, very passionately that it was critical SAGE continue with this appeal,” he told reporters.