Hi all,

The Fair Use and Video Working Group is holding an informal open meeting in New 
Orleans to discuss our project to define community practices in fair use for 
media librarians.  We'll review our intentions and methods and discuss our 
preliminary findings- where we found consensus in the community, where we did 
not.  We'll also solicit feedback from the audience in order to hear more about 
media librarian behaviors and practices.  It's an open committee meeting, but 
our intention is to speak to, and hear from, our target audience of VRT members.
Date & Time: Friday, June 24, 2011, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Location: HIL-Port (Hilton Riverside)

For those who want more info, read on:

For the last few years the VRT and ALA's Office of Information Technology 
Policy have been working on a statement of community practices in fair use for 
media librarians.  It's been a challenging project:  the issues are complex; 
the IP environment is shifting under our feet; and the task of organizing and 
conducting nationwide focus groups has been very time-intensive.  At this point 
we have interviewed lots of media librarians; in fact, many of you reading this 
message have generously donated your time to our focus groups or in-person 
interviews.   ALA has been deeply involved in this entire process, with Carrie 
Russell as our main contact and guide.

A note of clarification of our objectives and target audience:  we aim to 
create a statement of media librarian community practices.  It's all about 
media librarians:  the challenges they face balancing supply and demand, 
content and users,  the requirements of their legal counsel and the behaviors 
of scholars. It's about how they cope with these pressures in the face of 
tremendous change in higher education.    Other groups are exploring the 
symbiotic relationship between media librarians and the community of 
independent video producers  (cf. last year's Higher Education Digital Video 
Summit led by the "Gang of Seven").  That, however, is not our charge.  This 
effort is about defining media librarian needs, expectations and behaviors.

Hope to see you in NOLA,

--Judy Thomas, for the Fair Use Working Group


Judith Thomas
Director, Arts and Media Services
University of Virginia Library
434.924.8814   /     [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>



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