Copyright Issues In Libraries, Education and Open Access. - PD at SMU on 25 January

Pam, Safirna, Mathew (UWCSEA Dover) and  & I attended this session on copyright at SMU. These are some notes that I took at the time. Please feel free to ask one of us for more details.

The speakers were -

Derek Whitehead and Paul Ng

Derek discussed changes in in copyright and shared some great resources.

The OEL toolkit is a useful resource for checking how you can use resources

The continuum of openness: http://www.oel.edu.au/resources/uploads/2016/04/OEL-Continuum-of-Openness_web.pdf

Did you know that all ANU press books are free and open access? They even come with MARC records. He recommended What if we could re-imagine copyright? by Rebecca Giblin

Australian National Database provides free data

We may all be aware that copyright belongs to employers, but did you know that an email thread infringes copyright ? Australia has no fair use policy which is a contributing factor in the average Australian breaking copyright about 80 times a day!

The barriers  to copyright are:

• legal 
• technical (drm) 
• accessiblity (geoblocking)

Paul Ng from Ngee Ann Polytechnic says that all teachers are required to take a course on Copyright for Teachers 

Copyright is Singapore is for the life of the creator plus 70 years. Singapore has a fair use policy. 

Ultimately, whether or not something is fair use should be management decision.

He reminded us that plagiarism is about ethics and copyright is about law.

Paul answered specific questions from the audience. Here are some interesting points to note

• Students copyright in Singapore belongs to institution
• You can stream from a YouTube link even if it is pirated - it is YouTubes responsibility to monitor illegal uploads
• Using a VPN is not illegal but might breach terms of use of the site you are accessing
• Ted video by YouTube is copyright 
• Malaysia allows YouTube downloads 
• Australian students can use Australian content (i.e Clickview exchange / ABC videos)
• A video of a lesson that includes a YouTube clip shown on the intranet is okay in not for profit institutions
• If you search in google slides you only get copyright free images
• Hyperlinks are often sufficient attribution
• Images on websites should include a link
• How long do you wait for an email for permission? As long as it takes, but go ahead and use it if the owner is not likely to lose by your use.
• Adding a date of access to your attribution allows use of Internet wayback

Whether you are profit or not-for-profit makes a huge difference

For profit schools do not benefit from any exceptions 

If you make a decision based on fair-dealing you should inform your management

Record keeping important 

Paul tells his students to use Zotero for attribution- it is just good manners and required in academia.

FYI - Ngee Ann Poly pays $7 per head to CLASS. All institutions required to subscribe

Here is Paul's copyright flow chart to help you check if you are within the law

Barb Reid
UWCSEA East

JAW for library staff in KL in December -- a report back from GESS library officers

When we first heard about JAW 2016 @ISKL, we knew we it would be a great opportunity for us to meet people who shares the same profession as us but comes from a different country. We quickly signed up for the workshop and before we know, it was time for us to pack our bags for this trip.

To make it more enjoyable, we decided to bring our spouses along and did a road trip to Malacca and KL before attending the workshop. We got to experience the beautiful KL city and definitely enjoyed the makan there! Buffets after buffets, food trucks – we loved it!

We made our way to ISKL on the morning of 20th Dec 2016. The session started with the groups introducing themselves. The first presentation was on the topic of ‘Readers Advisory’ done by Azlin Library Assistant from ISKL followed by groups discussions on how ‘Readers Advisory’ are handled at the different schools. The different sources librarians use to provide book recommendations for our readers.  In between breaks and the different sessions we had throughout the day, participants were encouraged to try quizzes and participate in ice breaking games which promises great prizes for winners. One of the most interesting activity was the part where we had to guess the total no. of pages from a book tower that was on display! Both Rosnita and myself were happy to walk away as winners for two of the games – Unlock the Ring and Kahoot game.  Another good topic was on Weeding where we shared amongst ourselves some best practices used to give the book that got weeded another chance to ‘live’ and we discovered a few schools there donate their books to refugee centers.

It was enriching to learn from our friends there and we surely picked up some practices that we can apply back in GESS. We also had the opportunity to share our knowledge with the participants and we got to work in groups and everyone was given a chance to present their ideas through active group discussions. We discovered that in KL they also have something like the Red Dot Awards but it’s called Novel Knockout.  Some other topics covered at JAW was ‘how to handle student behaviors in school libraries’, weeding practices, library displays and also what I personally like best is the last topic for the day on how ISKL successfully implemented EzProxy in their school. It’s a one stop sign-on for all the databases that the school have subscribed for their school community.

Last but not least we want to thank ISLN for offering some sponsorship for our trip. It was a great learning experience for the both of us and we look forward to future JAWs!

-- submitted by German European School Singapore (GESS) Library Officers

• Rosnita Mohamad
• Sharifah Nooraiza