SCLA Webinar: The Right to Reserves: Controlled Digital Lending and the Future of Libraries - Library Events - South Carolina State Library

"We’re all moving toward the fall with concerns about how to provide expanded access to our reserves collections. Cleaning and safety protocols have yet to be developed, but many predict that students will need access to materials more than ever. Additionally, some libraries will remain closed to patrons physically, and some may open and close with little notice. How can we still provide access under these conditions?

Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) may be part of that solution to this conundrum. CDL is a methodology that explores an age-old service in a new digital environment: libraries can loan books to users. CDL uses technical controls to mimic the "owned to loan" ratio that libraries employ when they legally purchase and loan books, as they have done for centuries. Under this CDL method, utilizing the first sale and fair use doctrines, libraries could digitize print collections and then allow users access only the digital version, as long as you meet the requirements that preserve that "owned to loan" ratio, and remove access to the print version. This solution is not about adding digital copies to increase the collection size but it is about allowing libraries to operate in the new digital space with their legally acquired copies.

Come find out more about how these critical copyright exceptions can help our students, empower access, and learn how CDL can be another potential method to increase access during and after this crisis. 

This event is sponsored by ASIG (ACRL's Access Services Interest Group) and the South Carolina Library Association, in partnership with the South Carolina State Library."