Sources: Owning and Using Scholarship: An IP Handbook for Teachers and Researchers
Owning and Using Scholarship: An IP Handbook for Teachers and Researchers. By Kevin L. Smith. Chicago: ACRL, 2014. 240 p. Paper $54 (ISBN: 978-0-8389-8747-6).
Digital technologies challenge the assumptions of preexisting legal regimes, even as they enable new modes of scholarship. Whether using others’ intellectual works or disseminating and safeguarding their own, educators and scholars often navigate a morass of issues. This audience needs guidance that is sound in practice and concise yet robust in context. Drawing on his experience offering such guidance as the director of Copyright and Scholarly Communications for Duke University Libraries, Kevin Smith offers a handbook directed at achieving these ambitious aims.
Primarily written for a US audience, Smith identifies four areas of intellectual property: copyright, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. After explaining each area’s impact on teaching and research, the author offers compelling justification for emphasizing copyright throughout much of the book. He is thorough in outlining the considerations governing ownership of instructional and scholarly works, and his overview of institutional policies will benefit staff at all levels.
Readers will appreciate Smith’s lucid writing. Chapter 4 is a stellar example of the merits of this slim volume: in presenting a five-step process for deciding when and how to use others’ works, the author accomplishes nothing less than a crash course in copyright. Additional topics covered include open access publishing, licensing options, and technological protections. Useful recommendations abound, including an overview of publication contract clauses. The final chapter covers international contexts.
Discussions of intellectual property sometimes divide along a fault line, with philosophical abstraction on one side, and prescriptive simplification on the other. Smith’s approach is commendable for addressing practical application while empowering informed decision-making where ambiguities exist. Relevant examples illuminate the discussions throughout.
Beyond the ostensible practicality of a handbook, the author has a clear dual purpose. By bolstering stakeholder awareness of intellectual property implications, Smith invites spirited conversation about our current global digital milieu. After all, it is the future of scholarly discourse that is at stake.
Although the content more than delivers on the title’s promise, the text would have benefited from tighter copyediting. A number of fantastic resources are scattered throughout the notes and works cited. Future editions would profit from a collated appendix of useful websites.
Readers who work in settings without resident copyright advisors will especially appreciate this volume. Moreover, it will be invaluable for use in library and information studies coursework. In addition to print, this book is available as an open access publication through the Association of College and Research Libraries website (http://bit.ly/1ziN4ax). Highly recommended for all educators and researchers.—George Gottschalk, Collection Development Librarian, Rogers State University Library, Claremore, Oklahoma