Bobby is an experienced university administrator and academic librarian with expertise in scholarly communications, copyright, and high-quality innovative customer centered public service. Able to work effectively across all levels of the University and comfortable balancing tradition and innovation in the university context. Demonstrated commitment to the teaching and research mission of the institution and to promoting... Address: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
This presentation is a pre-recorded session of the Provost\u27s Task Force on Open Access Town Ha... more This presentation is a pre-recorded session of the Provost\u27s Task Force on Open Access Town Hall consultations
This presentation was developed to guide campus wide open access policy consultations at Western ... more This presentation was developed to guide campus wide open access policy consultations at Western University on behalf of the Provost\u27s Task Force on Open Access
Traditional outputs of scholarly communication, such as monographs and journal articles are being... more Traditional outputs of scholarly communication, such as monographs and journal articles are being supplemented by new forms of scholarship, particularly in fields such as digital humanities. Canadian university libraries have long played a role supporting the creation, distribution, and preservation of scholarly objects. That support must be extended to include new formats and modes of scholarly work, such as digital portfolios, non-linear narratives, social media, scholarly video journals, etc. As the means of production and forms of scholarly output diversify, libraries will need to understand the impact of these digital shifts and identify areas where library efforts can have the most influence. This article examines developing areas of non-traditional scholarly communication and discusses implications for members of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL).
Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 2017
INTRODUCTIONÂ Academic libraries have the privilege of serving many roles in the lives of their in... more INTRODUCTIONÂ Academic libraries have the privilege of serving many roles in the lives of their institutions. One role that is largely untapped is their ability to actively leverage their collections to support faculty teaching and to reduce student out-of-pocket costs by eliminating systemic double payment for course materials. DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM/SERVICEÂ This paper details a project by the Scholarly Communications and Copyright Office (SCCO) at the University of Toronto that aimed to reduce this systemic double payment by leveraging collections and electronic reserves to provide a new service, the Zero-to-Low Cost Courses. Building on existing relationships with faculty, SCCO staff reached out to potential candidates, identified library licensed materials in their printed course packs, and created digital course packs which students could use at no cost. NEXT STEPS This article shares the results of the project and explores next steps in using existing library resources to activ...
For the better part of a decade, universities have shown a dedication to expanding knowledge-buil... more For the better part of a decade, universities have shown a dedication to expanding knowledge-building and information sharing practices beyond the confines of the university campus, with many leading institutions dedicating significant attention and resources to the creation of an international educational commons. These efforts towards open access education and global participation have begun to gather in force and unity, and are coalescing under the broad umbrella of an Open Educational Resources (OER) movement. While universities are united by shared academic traditions and norms, OER policies at various institutions are developing in a piecemeal, often contradictory, fashion. This disparity is, in large part, due to the complex technological and legal implications involved in creating, organizing, and disseminating massive amounts of educational resources. Although developing OER policies in a trial and error fashion has lead to some innovative results, we will argue that the movement would benefit from concerted efforts by policymakers on foundational legal and technological issues.The paper will begin with a detailed analysis of the legal and technological issues facing university-created OER. Next, we will describe the current OER policy landscape based on the efforts of a few key leading institutions: MIT, the University of Michigan, and Carnegie Mellon. We will examine how each university addresses and attempts to resolve the legal and technological issues implicated by OER. In particular, we will discuss the problem of "magical thinking," the reliance on semi-legal arguments and legalistic, if legally incorrect, reasoning, to support open educational objectives. We will conclude by offering some suggested policy amendments and strategies that university may find helpful as they continue their important work on OER.It is our belief that this effort will help universities and scholars better understand the ways in which their OER efforts intersect with the law and the efforts of like-minded actors and institutions, and that this increased understanding will lead to a more effective and unified OER movement. We also believe that policymakers will become more effective in shaping policy in ways that support OER if they better understand the needs, traditions, and challenges facing universities. The OER movement has a tremendous potential to do vast good, and there are many actors working towards this goal; it is our hope that our research and analysis can aid this effort.
Information Systems: Behavioral & Social Methods, 2007
As virtual worlds grow in size and acceptance, increasing amounts of time and energy are spent by... more As virtual worlds grow in size and acceptance, increasing amounts of time and energy are spent by their users in the pursuit and creation of virtual property. This paper argues that the current governing regimes of these worlds, end user licensing agreements, are insufficient to deal with these interests. The author examines several of these worlds, the conflicts within them, and the inadequacy of EULAs to govern them.
We report on the work of a recent HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) task force charged to draft a... more We report on the work of a recent HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) task force charged to draft an actionable, definitional Non-Consumptive Use Research Policy. As the research division of HathiTrust, the HTRC facilitates computational text analysis of materials in the HathiTrust Digital Library (HTDL) by adhering to a non-consumptive research paradigm. As the HTRC has integrated the text of the full HTDL corpus into its datastore, it has become increasingly important to clarify and codify the Center’s policy for non-consumptive research. The task force, which consisted of copyright and scholarly communications librarians and representatives from HathiTrust operations and the HTRC, recommended a policy that clarifies acceptable researcher behavior and allowable exports from the HTRC Data Capsule (Plale, et al., 2015). This poster describes the task force’s work to establish a Non-Consumptive Use Research Policy for the HTRC that aims to achieve the same goals as copyright itself: to...
Copyright law in Canada and the United States has undergone significant changes in the past decad... more Copyright law in Canada and the United States has undergone significant changes in the past decade. Â New technology, new social attitudes towards content and creation, and a radically altered legal landscape have created a possibility space for creative disruption that was unthinkable in the past. Â Projects like the HathiTrust, the Internet Archive, and the rise of the digital humanities are changing the way we think of preserving and making available library content. How can libraries successfuly navigate this future? Â How can a good understanding of both the limits placed upon us and the rights granted to us by copyright law enhance our mission? By examining trends in Canadian and US case law, and exploring new and interesting ways to "be a library," this session hopes to expand our conception of what is possible, and to help guide us to responsibly find our way in an exciting new space.
This presentation is a pre-recorded session of the Provost\u27s Task Force on Open Access Town Ha... more This presentation is a pre-recorded session of the Provost\u27s Task Force on Open Access Town Hall consultations
This presentation was developed to guide campus wide open access policy consultations at Western ... more This presentation was developed to guide campus wide open access policy consultations at Western University on behalf of the Provost\u27s Task Force on Open Access
Traditional outputs of scholarly communication, such as monographs and journal articles are being... more Traditional outputs of scholarly communication, such as monographs and journal articles are being supplemented by new forms of scholarship, particularly in fields such as digital humanities. Canadian university libraries have long played a role supporting the creation, distribution, and preservation of scholarly objects. That support must be extended to include new formats and modes of scholarly work, such as digital portfolios, non-linear narratives, social media, scholarly video journals, etc. As the means of production and forms of scholarly output diversify, libraries will need to understand the impact of these digital shifts and identify areas where library efforts can have the most influence. This article examines developing areas of non-traditional scholarly communication and discusses implications for members of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL).
Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 2017
INTRODUCTIONÂ Academic libraries have the privilege of serving many roles in the lives of their in... more INTRODUCTIONÂ Academic libraries have the privilege of serving many roles in the lives of their institutions. One role that is largely untapped is their ability to actively leverage their collections to support faculty teaching and to reduce student out-of-pocket costs by eliminating systemic double payment for course materials. DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM/SERVICEÂ This paper details a project by the Scholarly Communications and Copyright Office (SCCO) at the University of Toronto that aimed to reduce this systemic double payment by leveraging collections and electronic reserves to provide a new service, the Zero-to-Low Cost Courses. Building on existing relationships with faculty, SCCO staff reached out to potential candidates, identified library licensed materials in their printed course packs, and created digital course packs which students could use at no cost. NEXT STEPS This article shares the results of the project and explores next steps in using existing library resources to activ...
For the better part of a decade, universities have shown a dedication to expanding knowledge-buil... more For the better part of a decade, universities have shown a dedication to expanding knowledge-building and information sharing practices beyond the confines of the university campus, with many leading institutions dedicating significant attention and resources to the creation of an international educational commons. These efforts towards open access education and global participation have begun to gather in force and unity, and are coalescing under the broad umbrella of an Open Educational Resources (OER) movement. While universities are united by shared academic traditions and norms, OER policies at various institutions are developing in a piecemeal, often contradictory, fashion. This disparity is, in large part, due to the complex technological and legal implications involved in creating, organizing, and disseminating massive amounts of educational resources. Although developing OER policies in a trial and error fashion has lead to some innovative results, we will argue that the movement would benefit from concerted efforts by policymakers on foundational legal and technological issues.The paper will begin with a detailed analysis of the legal and technological issues facing university-created OER. Next, we will describe the current OER policy landscape based on the efforts of a few key leading institutions: MIT, the University of Michigan, and Carnegie Mellon. We will examine how each university addresses and attempts to resolve the legal and technological issues implicated by OER. In particular, we will discuss the problem of "magical thinking," the reliance on semi-legal arguments and legalistic, if legally incorrect, reasoning, to support open educational objectives. We will conclude by offering some suggested policy amendments and strategies that university may find helpful as they continue their important work on OER.It is our belief that this effort will help universities and scholars better understand the ways in which their OER efforts intersect with the law and the efforts of like-minded actors and institutions, and that this increased understanding will lead to a more effective and unified OER movement. We also believe that policymakers will become more effective in shaping policy in ways that support OER if they better understand the needs, traditions, and challenges facing universities. The OER movement has a tremendous potential to do vast good, and there are many actors working towards this goal; it is our hope that our research and analysis can aid this effort.
Information Systems: Behavioral & Social Methods, 2007
As virtual worlds grow in size and acceptance, increasing amounts of time and energy are spent by... more As virtual worlds grow in size and acceptance, increasing amounts of time and energy are spent by their users in the pursuit and creation of virtual property. This paper argues that the current governing regimes of these worlds, end user licensing agreements, are insufficient to deal with these interests. The author examines several of these worlds, the conflicts within them, and the inadequacy of EULAs to govern them.
We report on the work of a recent HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) task force charged to draft a... more We report on the work of a recent HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) task force charged to draft an actionable, definitional Non-Consumptive Use Research Policy. As the research division of HathiTrust, the HTRC facilitates computational text analysis of materials in the HathiTrust Digital Library (HTDL) by adhering to a non-consumptive research paradigm. As the HTRC has integrated the text of the full HTDL corpus into its datastore, it has become increasingly important to clarify and codify the Center’s policy for non-consumptive research. The task force, which consisted of copyright and scholarly communications librarians and representatives from HathiTrust operations and the HTRC, recommended a policy that clarifies acceptable researcher behavior and allowable exports from the HTRC Data Capsule (Plale, et al., 2015). This poster describes the task force’s work to establish a Non-Consumptive Use Research Policy for the HTRC that aims to achieve the same goals as copyright itself: to...
Copyright law in Canada and the United States has undergone significant changes in the past decad... more Copyright law in Canada and the United States has undergone significant changes in the past decade. Â New technology, new social attitudes towards content and creation, and a radically altered legal landscape have created a possibility space for creative disruption that was unthinkable in the past. Â Projects like the HathiTrust, the Internet Archive, and the rise of the digital humanities are changing the way we think of preserving and making available library content. How can libraries successfuly navigate this future? Â How can a good understanding of both the limits placed upon us and the rights granted to us by copyright law enhance our mission? By examining trends in Canadian and US case law, and exploring new and interesting ways to "be a library," this session hopes to expand our conception of what is possible, and to help guide us to responsibly find our way in an exciting new space.
The University of Toronto Scholarly Communications and Copyright Office, in response to the chang... more The University of Toronto Scholarly Communications and Copyright Office, in response to the changing copyright landscape in Canada, designed, built, and implemented a series of campus wide user focused initiatives to help mitigate risk and reduce disruptions to teaching and research. This presentation outlines some of the highs and lows of this process, and provides advice for institutions facing similar circumstances.
Over the course of 2014-2015, the Scholarly Communications and Copyright Office (SCCO) have under... more Over the course of 2014-2015, the Scholarly Communications and Copyright Office (SCCO) have undertaken two complementary initiatives: the Syllabus Service and the Zero-to -Low Cost Course (ZLTCC) pilot project. Reaching thousands of students and hundreds of faculty, these initiatives provided high quality service to a significant constituency with a reasonable expenditure of resources. This whitepaper examines and assesses this effort, providing in depth data and analysis of the projects.
The ability to digitize hard copies, the proliferation of born digital content, and access to onl... more The ability to digitize hard copies, the proliferation of born digital content, and access to online distribution holds the promise of improved access to archival materials. Despite these advances, libraries and archives are increasingly hindered in providing this access by the legal issues surrounding their collections. However, this unfortunate problem can be resolved with a mixture of good policy, careful action, clarification of uncertain legal implications, and a reliance on the protections afforded to libraries and archives by the law.
This paper explores the legal issues faced by archivists and librarians in digitizing and distributing their materials. Through a discussion of current archiving practices, this paper walks readers though the relevant sections of the copyright act, as well as other implicated areas of the law. By showing potential sites of legal conflict, engaging difficulties with seeking permission to use library and archival content, and suggesting areas where archivists can push the boundaries of their rights more aggressively, this paper provides a glimpse of the legal landscape surrounding digital archiving, and offers suggestions on how to successfully navigate it. It is my sincere hope that this effort can empower librarians and archivists to make full use of their collections, to assert the full scope of their rights under the law, and to become advocates helping to shape the national discussion over the future of digital collections.
Changes to the law, new guidance from the Supreme Court, and shifting practices have radically al... more Changes to the law, new guidance from the Supreme Court, and shifting practices have radically altered the once familiar copyright landscape. As entities sitting at the nexus of copyright, publishers, authors, and consumers of copyrighted content, libraries have a vital role to play in helping shape and explore this new environment. However, in order to meaningfully participate in the new copyright landscape, libraries will need to develop and expand their capacity to deal with copyright issues.
The present paper surveys the existing library landscape at the time of summer 2013, by looking at outward facing materials and the presence of dedicated copyright staff or a copyright office. The website survey results of 23 English speaking CARL members are presented. Based upon these survey results, the authors suggest a course of action for libraries wishing to fully fill their role in the Canadian copyright landscape.
Ownership of intellectual property in video game worlds is a sticky issue, poorly governed by end... more Ownership of intellectual property in video game worlds is a sticky issue, poorly governed by end user licensing agreements (EULAs). This paper explores the thicket created by the derivative work right in creation undertake in virtual worlds.
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This paper explores the legal issues faced by archivists and librarians in digitizing and distributing their materials. Through a discussion of current archiving practices, this paper walks readers though the relevant sections of the copyright act, as well as other implicated areas of the law. By showing potential sites of legal conflict, engaging difficulties with seeking permission to use library and archival content, and suggesting areas where archivists can push the boundaries of their rights more aggressively, this paper provides a glimpse of the legal landscape surrounding digital archiving, and offers suggestions on how to successfully navigate it. It is my sincere hope that this effort can empower librarians and archivists to make full use of their collections, to assert the full scope of their rights under the law, and to become advocates helping to shape the national discussion over the future of digital collections.
The present paper surveys the existing library landscape at the time of summer 2013, by looking at outward facing materials and the presence of dedicated copyright staff or a copyright office. The website survey results of 23 English speaking CARL members are presented. Based upon these survey results, the authors suggest a course of action for libraries wishing to fully fill their role in the Canadian copyright landscape.