Children's Relevance Criteria and Information Seeking on Electronic
Resources
Sandra G. Hirsh Ten fifth-grade students were randomly selected from a class required to find three
sources of information on a sports figure for a class report. They were interviewed after selection of a figure and during their research, which was conducted at home and in both the school and public libraries. They
were also observed carrying out searches on the school's computers. Students were asked what they were doing and why. A second interview was carried out during the third week of the information-gathering process.
Results are an analysis of field notes and transcripts of recordings. Students were able to articulate their relevance criteria and used titles, notes fields, abstracts, Internet summaries, and skimming techniques to
evaluate the initial relevance of material retrieved. Topicality is the prime criterion in textual material. Novelty accounted for 15% of the decisions, authority for only 2%. Being interesting was the prime criteria
for graphic material, and accounted for 10% of textual decisions. Peer interest was also a noticeable criteria at 7% for text and 10% for graphics. The use of topicality as a criteria early in the process gives way
somewhat to the interesting criteria in the second interview. Indirect-Collective Referencing (ICR): Life Course, Nature, and
Importance of a Special Kind of Scientific Referencing
Endre Szava-Kovats
A longitudinal sample was utilized by Szava-Kovats to review 100 years of The Physical Review, yielding 4,200 papers and 84,000 formal references. If such references contain phrases like ``and references cited
therein,'' or ``and references therein,'' they are considered to be instances of Indirect-collective referencing (ICR). A separate review of early issues shows a possible occurrence in 1897, but the first clear
occurrence in 1901. The IRC phenomena grows steadily over the century and faster than the growth of papers themselves. From a recent issue, 4 of 19 papers exhibiting ICR were chosen and traced. The number of occurrences
is 40% larger than the total references normally available for citation indexing. Computer and Natural Language Texts--A Comparison Based on Long-Range Correlations
Peter Kokol, Vili Podgorelec,
Milan Zorman, Tatjana Kokol, and Tatjana Njivar Long-range correlation (LRC) is based upon a generalization of entropy. The power, alpha, of the distance between two points on the x-axis in a random walk
model, characterizes the differences between texts. Using 20 works each in English, German, and Slovenian, and 20 computer programs in each of C++, Pascal, and FORTRAN, Kokol, Podgorelec, Zorman, Kokol, and Njivar find
mean values of alpha for the texts to be close to 0.5, but the mean values for the programming languages are significantly higher. The long-range power law appears to apply to both. PERSPECTIVES ON COPYRIGHT
AND FAIR-USE GUIDELINES FOR EDUCATION AND LIBRARIES
[From the acknowledgment: I also extend my thanks to Lois Lunin and her colleagues at John Wiley & Sons, Inc. They expressed an early interest in
publishing these essays, continued to push us when the project needed additional motivation, and they kindly cooperated in permitting the authors to enter into a most extraordinary agreement for these essays. The
fundamental objective of these essays is to assist decision makers at libraries and educational institutions throughout the country, who may be struggling with the question of whether the CONFU guidelines on fair use
may be appropriate standards for local policies and practices. We hope that these essays will assist with those decisions, and promote discussion of these issues. To that end, the agreement with John Wiley & Sons,
Inc. allows the publisher to retain the copyright to these works, but this published version includes the statement that they may be reproduced and distributed by nonprofit educational institutions and libraries. We
hope that this permission will allow the articles to be widely shared at colleges and universities and at libraries to increase awareness of copyright and to help those institutions make more informed decisions with
respect to fair use.] Introduction and Overview
Kenneth D. Crews The articles in this collection grew out of a series of presentations delivered in April 1997 at a ``Town Meeting on Fair Use,
Education, and Libraries'' held on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. That event was one of a series of Town Meetings convened around the country to discuss the development of ``fair-use
guidelines'' by the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU). The need for debate about the meaning of fair use and the appropriateness of fair-use guidelines was vividly clear at the Town Meeting, and is
demonstrated repeatedly in this collection of essays. Because these articles are based on conference presentations, they often bridge the gap between the formality of a published study and the informality of the
original presentations in a relaxed setting open to broad-based discussion and debate. Frequent readers of JASIS will be struck by the lack of scientific analysis present in these articles. Much of the debate over
copyright law and its implications is too often based on experiential evidence, anecdotes, and individual perceptions of the relationship between the law and organizational objectives. These articles and all of the
CONFU negotiations are unquestionably built on such ``unscientific'' processes rather than empirical studies of causal relationships. These articles, therefore, reveal, for better or for worse, that much of the debate
over copyright is not yet in the realm of scientific inquiry. These articles also reveal a wealth of opportunity for future research questions. CONFU-sed: Security, Safe Harbors, and Fair-Use Guidelines
Dwayne K. Buttler The first essay by Buttler (1999) examines the foundation of fair-use law and early fair-use guidelines. It also explores the origins of the Conference on Fair Use, and the call to build on the
past with an understanding of fair use for newer technologies. At the time of the Town Meeting, in April 1997, the direction of CONFU was taking clear shape, and the participants understood well the nature of the
forthcoming guidelines that would appear in a CONFU report later that year (CONFU, 1997). Indeed, events had become sufficiently crystallized that the ``final'' CONFU Report (CONFU, 1998) includes guidelines that differ
little from the proposed guidelines that were debated in early 1997. What's Right About Fair-Use Guidelines for the Academic Community?
Mary Levering
Levering urges the academic community to experiment with the guidelines
and give them a chance, rather than rejecting them before implementation.
What's Wrong With Fair-Use Guidelines for the Academic Community?
Kenneth Frazier
Frazier makes clear that he does not oppose all possible guidelines, but he articulates serious concerns about the
interpretations of fair use that emerged from the CONFU process. [The next four essays articulate views about various guidelines on the subjects of multimedia development, the making and archiving of digital images,
transmissions of material in distance learning, electronic-reserve systems, and interlibrary loans. Of all the CONFU guidelines, the multimedia guidelines probably have received the greatest attention, including the
strongest statements of support as well as the most vociferous criticism.] The Multimedia Guidelines
Joann Stevens Stevens (1999) describes events leading to development of those guidelines,
and identifies how they may be useful in the academic community.. Testing the Limits: The CONFU Digital-Images and Multimedia Guidelines and Their Consequences for Libraries and Educators
Christine L. Sundt Sundt (1999), however, takes those guidelines and the digital-images guidelines to task, focusing on their legal and practical questionability. She further explores complex questions surrounding
the identification of copyright owners and securing permissions once a user reaches the limits of fair use for digital images. Under the proposed guidelines, Sundt points out that users will readily hit those limits,
particularly as the guidelines establish rigorous time limits on use and require permission for any repeat uses of images. Guidelines for Distance Learning and Interlibrary Loan: Doomed and More Doomed
Laura N. Gasaway
[See below.] Electronic Reserves and Fair Use: The Outer Limits of CONFU
Kenneth D. Crews Gasaway (1999) and Crews (1999) take an insider's look at negotiations surrounding
possible guidelines for distance learning, interlibrary loan, and electronic reserves. These activities have several common traits. They are of tremendous importance to librarianship, education, and research. These
activities are also of growing importance and frequent occurrence at colleges and universities around the country. Moreover, although these activities may change with the application of new technologies, particularly
the use of computer networks and transmissions, they are also based on long-standing practices and expectations about the legal underpinnings of earlier technology. In particular, struggles with new technologies may be
predicated on experiences with photocopies for library reserves and television transmissions for distance learning. Gasaway and Crews reveal that negotiations with respect to these issues ultimately collapsed and
failed to produce guidelines that received consensus support at CONFU meetings. The inability of CONFU to generate guidelines for these important issues demonstrates the limits of the unstructured negotiations in CONFU
and the inability of negotiated guidelines to achieve broad support when the issue is of central importance both to the academic community and to the commercial publishing community. The Economics of Publishing:
The Consequences of Library and Research Copying
Colin Day Day (1999) is the director of a large university press, and he emphasizes the importance of copyright protection for the survivability of
scholarly publishing, and he cautions about the adverse consequences of a broad interpretation of fair use. The Immunity Dilemma: Are State Colleges and Universities Still Liable for Copyright Infringements?
Kenneth D. Crews and Georgia K. Harper Crews and Harper (1999) reflect on the practical and legal meaning of a series of court rulings that may give limited immunity to state colleges and universities
against copyright infringement claims. That development is presented here not only as a matter worthy of discussion itself, but also as an example of the dynamic legal forces that often have extraordinarily complex
effects on policy making and decision making within educational institutions. Fair-Use Guidelines: A Selected Bibliography
Noemi A. Rivera-Morales Rivera-Morales (1999) has prepared a bibliography
of resources for further information. Her work lists the guidelines from the past and from CONFU. She includes numerous sources about the guidelines and about the general copyright issues that the guidelines broach. Her
bibliography lists citations to news coverage about CONFU. Although the press coverage was hardly plentiful, the occasional articles offer glimpses of the processes and tensions that underlay the difficult negotiations.
As Rivera-Morales further points out, the literature often lacks systematic reviews and analyses of the needs of academic users or of the interests of copyright owners. She emphasizes the need for additional
investigations to assess the extent to which fair-use guidelines meet their objectives and serve the interests of proponents.
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