Okinawan Studies: BLOG / News

US Copyright Law Section 108(H) and libraries

The Internet Archive, which is "a 501(c)(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format," made a blog entry on October 10, 2017, about the US copyright law 108(H), and introduced an interpretation of the law and its implication to libraries. 

"The Internet Archive is now leveraging a little known, and perhaps never used, provision of US copyright law, Section 108h, which allows libraries to scan and make available materials published 1923 to 1941 if they are not being actively sold."

http://blog.archive.org/2017/10/10/books-from-1923-to-1941-now-liberated/

The blog post includes a link to Professor Elizabeth Townsend Gard's article on the significance of Section 108(H) to libraries. 

Townsend Gard, Elizabeth. (October 2, 2017). Creating a Last Twenty (L20) Collection: Implementing Section 108(H) in Libraries, Archives and Museums. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3049158

This is an opportunity for libraries to scan works (as long as they are not actively sold) and make them accessible!