Law, Libraries and Technology

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (2006), "Law, Libraries and Technology", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 62 No. 2, pp. 296-298. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410610653370

Legal issues are more important than ever for information professionals. Intellectual property rights and licensing, contracts and liability, defamation and privacy, are now areas of the law, which come into many, if not most, professional debates. This interest is reflected in the growing number of books on law in libraries and information work, like Graham Cornish's Copyright (now in its 4th edition, Facet, 2004) and Paul Pedley's Essential Law for Information Professionals (Facet, 2003), Chris Armstrong and Laurence Bebbington's Staying Legal (now in its 2nd edition, Facet, 2004) and Sandy Norman's Practical Copyright for Information Professionals (Facet, 2004). These will probably be known to most readers of this review and will almost certainly be in professional collections and libraries serving student and CPD education and training.

Facet are to be commended for strengthening their list at such a time, even though they are not the only kids on the block. Paul Brennan's sensible Law for IT Professionals (Emis Publishing, 2003), Peter Sammons's excellent analysis of law in the context of knowledge management in his Buying Knowledge (Gower, 2005), and the exciting new e‐book from Nick Holmes and Delia Venables, Whither the Legal Web? (Venables, 2005), demonstrate what is out there. Of particular interest here are two recent books from Paul Pedley, first his Managing Digital Rights: A Practitioner's Guide (Facet, 2005) and second his e‐book Digital Copyright (Facet, 2005), both of which have a clear focus on the information professional and what he/she needs to know. There is a spate of books, too, from US publishers like The Haworth Information Press explaining licensing, legal aspects of electronic reserves and electronic delivery, and the like (such as Janet Croft's Legal Solutions in Electronic Reserves and the Electronic Delivery of Interlibrary Loan, 2004). I also like the snappy and practical American Library Association Complete Copyright: An Everyday Guide for Librarians, by Carrie Russell (ALA, 2005), relevant and fun!

This bibliographical introduction is meant to highlight current interest in the law as well as show the competition for the book currently under review. Against the opposition, it performs less than well. The ‘information professional’ series from Chandos Publishing is edited by Ruth Rikowski, whose own Globalisation, Information and Libraries (Chandos, 2005), on World Trade Organization GATS and TRIPS Agreements, has attracted good reviews for being topical and international and bad for being ideological. The general standard of the series is good, despite weak bindings.

Law, Libraries and Technology is a strange work to read as a professional. It seems to have been written by someone guessing at what might interest the information professional about the law. It seems sure that copyright will be relevant but discusses it in a hit‐and‐miss way, throwing it at the reader at the start, leaping back into it later, describing issues (like idea/expression, economic and moral rights, collecting agencies) which are likely to be common knowledge already, upsetting the flow with contract (which is not developed) and hinting at liability (which is also not developed), and struggling to a conclusion with digital developments (e‐books and piracy, peer‐to‐peer internet music) where the challenges of the digital domain, so critically needed there and everywhere in the book, are simply nowhere. Perhaps there was an editorial decision to hold back on digital since three other books in the series (Limb's Digital Dilemmas, Anderson & Maxwell's Starting a Digitisation Centre, and Reid's Digital Age and Local Studies)) discuss applications, and since two others (Pester's Legal Information and Harvey's Role of the Legal Information Officer) cover aspects of legal work in an information setting.

The focus in the book under review is UK law, though it rightly, albeit unsystematically, alerts readers to the impact of EU law. Yet the chapter on European Union law spends most of its time talking generically about EU law as such, only hinting at law relevant to information professionals and providing no systematic discussion of copyright law as amended by EU law, the impact of current Directives, or issues to do with databases, domain names, metadata, and privacy. A short chapter on worldwide copyright merely cites bodies like WIPO and WTO and conventions like Berne and UCC, and does not even connect up WIPO with ICANN, the domain name people where there is such international controversy at present (December 2005).

The last chapter spins off into health and safety issues (employment and health‐and‐safety law, with associated liability, deserve separating out) but talk of VDUs scarcely address the many ‘technological’ changes and challenges with legal implications currently facing the information professional. The word ‘technology’ in the title is left as an unfulfilled promise. Internet law, so widely covered and so imperious now for the information professional in forms like digital dissemination, contracting with content aggregators, net‐streaming, online delivery, and defamation and liability issues for intranets and email and bulletin‐board systems and the like, will be topics any reader will expect to find, however briefly noted, but in vain. Practical aspects of technology‐related law, such as that on licensing, could and should be there, and nothing on patents and trade‐marks, given interest in software and domain names, is astonishing, as is the absence of open source/creative commons issues. Given the importance, too, of networks in information work, look in vain for them and related law.

Where chapters do have promise, like chapter 6 on infringement and chapter 7 on exceptions, so many issues crowd in, many fleetingly touched upon rather than systematically discussed, that it is hard to draw back with any clear sense of what is really what for the information professional. Even its own terms, it swings about from topic to topic, going back on itself, and the emphasis on copyright distorts the wide range of legal topics that could and should have been provided. Contract and liability are left hanging in the wind, while digital applications (in the sense that, say, comparator Pedley deals with them) need a lot more work. Case law is tired and no listing is provided at the start. The index is perfunctory.

Armstrong and Bebbington really tried (and succeeded) to piece together the importance of “staying legal”, while Van Hoorebeck simply stops with truisms about piracy in the music industry (on which there are other books). Norman kept focus with classical restraint, Cornish drove the text with Q/A likely to be asked by users, you never get lost in Pedley, Brennan provided a useful handbook, and word is that Oppenheim has something good in the pipeline. Hard though the verdict is, Law, Libraries and Technology is simply not worth buying, though don't let that close your mind to what is, more generally, a professional relevant series.