LIS-S 654 Law Librarianship
3 credits
- Prerequisite(s): LIS-S 500, LIS-S 507
- Delivery: Online
- Semesters offered: Summer (Check the schedule to confirm.)
Description
The course provides an introduction to major categories of legal materials: secondary sources, cases, statutes, regulations and administrative materials, and international treaties. Students will learn to analyze research problems to identify appropriate materials, find those materials, and evaluate them for relevance, authority, and currency. Students will also develop a collection development recommendation and produce a legal research guide for a self-selected targeted patron group. Students will also learn about how to apply legal skills to all forms of librarianship, with a focus on law librarianship in law schools, law firms, and court/public law libraries
Program Learning Goals Supported
Instructors map their courses to specific LIS Program Goals. Mapped program goals drive the design of each course and what students can expect to generally learn.
- Connect Core Values and Professional Ethics to Practice
- Facilitate Engagement in the Information Ecosystem
- Lead and Manage Libraries, Archives and Other Information Organizations
- Conduct Systematic Research to Inform Decisions
- Innovate Professional Practice with Information Services and Technology
Learning Outcomes
Instructors develop learning outcomes for their courses. Students can expect to be able to achieve the learning outcomes for a given course after successfully completing the course.
- Understand the nature and scope of legal problems arising in the operation of the library
- Identify the responsibilities that library and information professionals have in executing current law and the opportunities available to effect necessary change
- Evaluate current legal responses to such problems and envision alternative responses, both legal and non-legal, in light of sound information concepts
- Express, consistent with professional responsibility, views and opinions concerning the legal problems in the library and information sciences
- Locate and evaluate primary and secondary legal material regarding legal issues in the library, understanding their value as a professional decision-making resource
- Apply existing legal tenets to various library environments and develop practical compliance strategies for those organizations.
Course Overview
Instruction is in Canvas. Lessons are organized into Modules whose length may vary.
Module 1: Copyright Basics and Fair Use
-articulate the questions to ask and factors to consider when assessing legal risk in copyright, -explain the four fair use factors and how each is applied, -understand the interrelationship among the four fair use factors, -understand the recent trends in fair use litigation, -undertake a fair use analysis of a set of facts in light of current law, and -based on analysis offer alternatives or adjustments to make an unfair use fair.
Module 2: Copyright Section 108, 110 and other applications
-explain and apply the statutory exceptions in subsections of section 109, -considering the first sale doctrine and subsection 109(d), articulate the difference between ownership and possession of a copy or phonorecord of a protected work, and understand the impact of this distinction; -identify public displays that are allowed under section 109(c), -explain the operation of section 108 in a variety of scenarios, -understand the interlibrary loan, institutional and patron copying provisions of section 108, -understand the shortcomings or drawbacks of section 108, -understand the rights of educators and students in a “classroom” setting, and -determine when a public performance is allowed (the limitation on the exclusive rights of the owner is available) and when a license or other permission must be obtained.
Module 3: Digital Issues DMCA and Licensing
-understand the controversial aspects of section 1201, -identify content that qualifies as CMI, -understand the difference between circumvention and trafficking, -describe the requirements of a valid take-down request, -identify the shortcomings of section 512, -understand the subpoena standards and restoration mechanisms of section 512, -identify the various forms of online contracts such as mass-market or consumer agreements, shrink-wrap, click-wrap and browse-wrap agreement, -determine the “default” rules that are used to determine the jurisdiction of any disputes under an online contract, -distinguish between conditions and covenants in a license agreement, -identify a license provision by its legal name, -understand the legal meaning of license provisions, -identify the provisions in a license alter the rights that a user would have if the content was governed by the copyright law, -identify common provisions in a database or other content agreement, -distinguish between conditions and covenants in a license agreement, -identify license provisions by common legal name, -understand the legal meaning of license provisions, -identify common provisions in a software EULA or other agreement, -articulate the policy goals behind the first sale doctrine (and the copyright law in general) and the challenges that licensing poses for those goals, and -consider the primacy of the freedom to contract in our legal system and the negative impact this primacy may portend.
Module 4: Confidentiality in the Library and the USA PATRIOT
-distinguish between a verbal communications and recollections and “record” protected under a state library privacy statute, -understand the application and limits of state library privacy statutes, especially that of your home state, and -respond to law enforcement and other requests for information regarding a patron’s use of public library spaces, services or materials.
Module 5: Access Issues Patron Conduct Codes, Use of Public Spaces
-identify and apply the factors used in characterizing particular spaces in a public library, -determine when and how the various level of constitutional review are applied, -identify the justifications that satisfy the various levels of constitutional review (compelling interest, significant interest, and rational/reasonable basis) and use these distinctions in policy design, -identify the sorts of activities that can and cannot be prohibited in a public library meeting room, -understand when an entanglement issues arise under the Establishment Clause and when it does not, -be able to craft a policy that designates the public library meeting room as a limited public forum under the criteria of the public forum doctrine, -understand the factors considered to determine whether restrictions in a non-public forum are constitutionally permissible, -understand the level of constitutional review applicable to regulations on patron conduct, -identify elements of a code of conduct that will satisfy a compelling interest and significant state interest, and a rational or reasonable basis, and -understand the due process elements that must be satisfied when imposing restrictions on a patron’s access, i.e., banning a patron from the public library.
Module 6: First Amendment in Collections
-identify the permissible content standards to use when reconsidering the selection of library material, -articulate the proper processes to follow in reconsidering public library or public school library material,-employ permissible standards for consideration of gift or relocation of public library material, and -understand how to craft and honor parental permissions regarding access and use of content by minors in a public library or public school library.
Module 7: First Amendment Online
-Respond to a library patron’s request for filter unblocking or disabling that comports with Constitutional standards, -Characterize access to the internet in a public library under the public forum doctrine, and -Understand how the decision in the CIPA case can help libraries control the content on its website.
Module 8: Information Torts and Liability
-Understand the intersection of First Amendment and tort law as it relates to information claimed or deemed harmful, -Articulate the standards for writing book, product and other reviews that are not defamatory, -Understand the legal protection afforded by federal law for legal harms emanating from third parties, -Articulate general concept of negligence and malpractice, -Understand general principles of governmental immunity, and -Avoid the unauthorized practice of medicine or law when dispensing medical and legal reference assistance.
Policies and Procedures
Please be aware of the following linked policies and procedures. Note that in individual courses instructors will have stipulations specific to their course.