encounters that material for a very different purpose than the creators originally intended. Preserving such work can also be considered strongly transformative in itself, separate from any way that future patrons may access it.
Authors of online materials often have a specific objective and a particular audience in mind; libraries that collect this material serve a different and broader purpose and a different and broader network of users. Librarles collect not only for a wide range of purposes today, but also for unanticipated uses by future researchers.
PRINCIPLE:
It is fair use to create topically based collections of websites and other material from the Internet and to make them available for scholarly use.
LIMITATIONS:
- Captured material should be represented as it was captured, with appropriate information on mode of harvesting and date.
- To the extent reasonably possible, the legal proprietors of the sites in question should be identified according to the prevailing conventions of attribution.
- Libraries should provide copyright owners with a simple tool for registering objections to making items from such a collection available online, and respond to such objections promptly.
ENHANCEMENTS:
- Claims of fair use relating to material posted with “bot exclusion” headers to ward off automatic harvesting may be stronger when the institution has adopted and follows a consistent policy on this issue, taking into account the possible rationales for collecting Internet material and the nature of the material in question.
- The more comprehensive a collection of web impressions in a given topic area is, the more persuasively the inclusion of any given item can be characterized as fair use.
COORDINATING ORGANIZATIONS:
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 126 research libraries at comprehensive, research-extensive institutions in the U.S. and Canada that share similar research missions, aspirations, and achievements. The association’s importance and distinction is born from its membership and the nature of the institutions represented. ARL member
