Washington Office Briefing

Legislation has far reaching impact on the professional lives of all librarians. Issues addressed in legislation determine things that librarians are permitted and not permitted to do as well as the funding available or not available to many libraries for many programs. Two briefings that offer incomparable overviews of current legislation are the ALA Washington Office briefing at the Annual Conference and the briefing in Washington, DC on ALA’s National Library Legislation Day.

Two of the highlights of the 2008 Annual Conference briefing were presentations about the recent report on section 108 of the Copyright Act and about Talking Books for the Blind.


Section 108

Innovations in digital technology make it clear new law is needed in some areas of the Copyright Act. For this reason, the Library of Congress formed an independent study group to recommend revisions to section 108, that is, the section which provides libraries and archives some exceptions for purposes of replacement and preservation. The study group addressed the needs of museums as well.

Representatives of the various interests (libraries, museums, archives, creators and distributers of content, and others) agreed on some issues but not others. For example, Disney and others objected to making copies of graphic materials for interlibrary loan, the speaker said. So the report dealt only with copies of text for this purpose.

The representatives of various interests did not reach consensus on some fundamental principles, for example, on the matter of what is copyright. There were differences in the interpretation of the law on this point.

The speaker indicated that a hardball battle is brewing on section 108 issues. He wondered whether the library community was bold enough in representing its views in the study group. He also asked whether the library community is ready for the hardball offensive needed to protect library rights under the copyright law in order to serve library users and the public interest.

[A Library of Congress News Release about the section 108 report is online at http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2008/08-063.html and the full report is available at http://www.section108.gov/ ]


Talking Books For the Blind

The speaker thanked ALA for its support of Talking Books over the past two years.

The major issues concerning Talking Books are funding, time and technology, the speaker indicated. Talking books are changing their technology for only the third time in their history. They originated as LP records in the 1930s, migrated to cassette tapes in the 1960s, and now are converting to digital technology.

One obstacle to the Talking Book project arose when the government budget office said, “Why don’t you use off the shelf technology?”

There are three major problems with this: first, many off the shelf technologies require vision (can you operate your iPod without seeing it?); second, off the shelf technologies tend to become obsolete relatively quickly, Talking Book technology must remain current for a long time; and third, for copyright reasons, Talking Books for the blind must be encrypted -- off the shelf technology does not handle encryption.

Another problem, the speaker said, arose between May and June of this year. The $76 million in the bill before Congress somehow changed from a 4 year conversion project to a 6 year one. This is another move that creates problems for blind people. For one thing, part of the conversion involves making the hardware that will play the digital Talking Books. Many blind people do not have these digital players, but in 2010 all new Talking Books will be digital. Thus some people might have to wait 4 years (from 2010 to 2014) before they have a player that can read new Talking Books.

The other problem with the longer conversion period is the decrease of Talking Book titles that can be made. Because new books are continually being published, the need to keep up with new material means that 27% fewer existing titles would be recorded in a 6 year conversion project than would be in a 4 year conversion.

The speaker ended his presentation by reading the Gettysburg Address from a Braille page and then saying, “ Lincoln was engaged in great struggle but looked to the future. Blind people now are engaged in a bit of a struggle and like Lincoln look to the promise of the future.” There was applause.