Just got in and looked at my 43 email messages re the ACRL Best Practices...my god: All of this is getting to sound like a room full drunken Talmudists on a particularly disputatious day.
The constitutional meaning and intent of the Constitution aside, it seems to me that there are a number of issues which are being completely overlooked. I know I've said this repeatedly, but here goes again: Other than the "effect of the use on the market or potential marke" test, the law does not make distinctions when it comes to things like market segment when it comes to applying FU tests/factors...hollywood blockbusters and tiny, indie documentaries basically get the same litmus tests I think, however, that as professionals concerned about the future of diverse, quality content, the nature of the markets we're dealing with need to be factored into our thinking about access policies and our arguments and claims regarding FU. On one hand, I'm a big advocate of pushing as hard as possible on the fair use front: I think what we're doing as librarians and archivists and teachers is culturally significant, and fair use rights in the service of our work need to be protected assiduously (especially in these days of increasingly proprietary, politically connected Big Media). On the other hand: going to bat for interpretations of FU that have the potential of seriously damaging the livelihood of key content providers is tantamount to shooting ourselves in the foot. I'm thinking primarily about indie producers and distributors here. The relationship between these two communities--content providers and content acquirers--has been particularly symbiotic over the course of the past 30 years or so. And, if you'll pardon the really lousy mixed metaphor, I'm increasingly worried about throwing the documentary babies out with the fair use bathwater (ugh!) (On the other other hand: I think that indie distributors have brought some of this on themselves. The pricing and delivery models currently in place are frequently out of sync with the current economic state of libraries and are frequently characterized by an unrealistic sense of the value and worth of traditional content delivered in new packages) The ACRL guidelines have been developed in a vacuum: they're broad, idealistic, and seem to be largely divorced from the realities of the media marketplace or the practicalities of building collections and services in libraries. As much as I respect these efforts, I think they're deeply flawed. Now can we PLEASE talk about something else for a change. gary handman Gary Handman Director Media Resources Center Moffitt Library UC Berkeley 510-643-8566 ghand...@library.berkeley.edu http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC "I have always preferred the reflection of life to life itself." --Francois Truffaut VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
