This two-part weblog seems on the provisions that exist in library legal guidelines throughout European nations regarding the constructing of collections and what libraries can do with them. It then assesses how far the achievement of those mandated features is pissed off by a scarcity of entry to e-books.
The primary a part of this weblog offered an introduction to the subject of the interplay between tradition legal guidelines (library laws addressing collections) and copyright legal guidelines (as expressed within the margin left to rightholders to find out whether or not and the best way to enable libraries to licence and lend e-books). This highlighted the connection made between the work of libraries to construct and provides entry to collections and the broader proper of entry to data. It additionally underlined the emphasis on the independence of practices right here, with the first information being to fulfill the wants of the group and supply the widest doable vary of knowledge.
This second half seems at extra expectations and mandates for libraries, and interrogates how restrictions on e-book entry danger undermining these. As a reminder, full extracts from legal guidelines, with hyperlinks to unique texts, can be found right here.
Libraries ought to accumulate various media
Whereas many legal guidelines merely don’t specify any explicit kind of media, some explicitly clarify that libraries ought to be accumulating supplies in numerous varieties. Flanders requires a ‘pluriform’ assortment, whereas Bremen, Greece, Trento, Venezia-Giulia and Moldova speak broadly about a wide range of media.
Croatia, France, Nord-Rhein Westfalen, Moldova and Slovenia certainly particularly discuss the necessity to accumulate and provides entry to digital supplies. The Netherlands does the identical, though provides the Nationwide Library a selected position in constructing collections.
The significance of lending
The position of lending in libraries’ potential to fulfil their missions can be set out in a lot of legal guidelines. Flanders’ regulation underlines {that a} obligation of libraries is each to supply session of a large supply of books, and:
The lending of supplies and information with the bottom doable obstacles, particularly for hard-to-reach teams and other people with restricted incomes.
Estonia’s regulation units out:
Mortgage for in-house use and residential lending of things and granting entry to public data by the general public knowledge communication community are the essential companies of public libraries
Equally, the English, Finnish, Irish, Spanish and Swedish legal guidelines additionally spotlight the elemental nature of lending.
Libraries are additionally anticipated to share works between one another, in an effort to meet wants. The significance of inter-library mortgage is about out within the roles given to libraries in Czechia, Finland, Poland and Slovenia.
An fascinating particular angle is the decision within the legal guidelines of Moldova and Spain to allow the digitisation of bodily supplies after which entry to those. This makes no reference to being restricted solely to public area works.
Constructing and preserving collections
One other position of libraries – already hinted at earlier – is to construct everlasting collections and protect these for the long run. The Danish regulation, for instance, requires libraries to gather ‘an acceptable proportion of revealed Danish works’, whereas the Northern Irish regulation additionally makes a reference to safeguarding native heritage.
The Estonian regulation additionally underlines that assortment constructing is a part of the definition of regional and coordinating libraries. The identical goes for Lazio, Basilicato, Emilia Romagna, Piedmont and Poland.
Whereas that is once more a job extra sometimes related to nationwide, analysis or extra specialised libraries, some legal guidelines stress the place of public libraries in preserving content material, particularly as issues supplies concerning the native space. France’s regulation, equally, units out the position of public libraries in preserving works, and so supporting analysis, as do these of Poland and Lazio amongst others.
The incompatibility of restrictions on e-book entry and lending with library legal guidelines
As highlighted within the introduction to the primary a part of this weblog, copyright regulation has not stored up with the practices of libraries in a digital world. What may have been a significant turning level – the choice of the Courtroom of Justice of the European Union in VOB vs Stichting Leenrecht – has been undermined by its lack of reference to the opportunity of disapplying contract phrases or circumventing technological safety measures, in addition to the slowness of governments in implementing this side of EU regulation. None have performed so totally, with the Netherlands drawing on the judgment to return to an answer which nonetheless permits publishers to refuse licenses (an identical state of affairs to that in the UK).
Crucially, there’s additionally nothing to forestall rightholders themselves from benefiting from the powers they’ve, and easily refusing to licence e-books to libraries. Whereas Geiger and Jütte make a powerful case for an entry proper, it stays the case that libraries both battle to achieve entry to works within the first place, or can see this entry withdrawn from sooner or later to the following with little if any discover. Briefly, European copyright regulation because it stands right now very a lot leaves entry to e-books as much as the discretion of rightholders.
But, throughout the examples of legal guidelines offered above, this discretionary energy will not be cited as a related issue for libraries when figuring out (digital) collections insurance policies. Certainly, these purely industrial selections could certainly distinction with the decision for libraries to be free of economic pressures in some legal guidelines. Whereas in fact libraries must work inside the limits of their budgets, additional restrictions based mostly on the discretion of rightholders appear incompatible with true library independence.
As well as it’s clear that when a kind of important share of e-books are unavailable to libraries, it’s far more durable to fulfill the situations set out. Constructing common, balanced, responsive, up-to-date collections is much more durable when working from a extra restricted catalogue of works.
With the act of lending itself set out as a core perform of libraries too, contract phrases and technological safety measures that make it unimaginable to lend – each to particular person customers, and between libraries – are additionally problematic, confounding the targets established by legislators.
Lastly, the mannequin of e-book lending mostly on supply, with e-books held on publishers’ or different platforms’ servers moderately than acquired by libraries, additionally stands in distinction with these library legal guidelines that urge libraries to construct collections, in addition to to practise preservation. Sufficient legal guidelines are clear that e-books have as a lot of a spot in library collections as bodily ones.
In sum, it will seem that an ongoing failure to guard the flexibility of libraries to accumulate, lend and protect e-books runs instantly towards the desire expressed by legislators when passing library laws.
Conclusions
This text has got down to discover how library legal guidelines from 33 jurisdictions in 17 nations throughout Europe talk about the constructing of library collections. It seems particularly to establish frequent developments between them, notably relating to their integral significance for entry to data, and the necessity to reply to native wants whereas additionally providing as large a spread of views as doable. Different shared options embrace an openness to a wide range of media sorts – with digital explicitly named in some – after which the probabilities to lend and protect collections.
The article then underlines how restrictions on libraries’ entry to e-books, and potentialities subsequently to lend or protect these, serve to undermine the achievements of those targets, set out by governments and legislators as a part of their broader cultural insurance policies.
The influence of this, along with the frustration of cultural coverage targets, can be wider. Library legal guidelines – and particularly provisions on assortment constructing – steadily are designed as a part of wider efforts to advertise studying, literacy and training (France, Schleswig Holstein, Rheinland-Pfalz, the Netherlands, Sweden). Some go additional, noting how this work helps social inclusion (Puglia), democracy (Nord-Rhein Westfalen) and improvement typically (Estonia, Finland, Rheinland-Pfalz). Insofar as assortment constructing and lending is hindered, so too is figure in direction of these targets.
Briefly, the continued lack of steps to make sure that libraries can entry and lend e-books on related phrases to bodily ones represents a unbroken drag on the achievement of cultural legal guidelines and wider public coverage targets.
