E‐publishing and Digital Libraries: Legal and Organizational Issues

Citation

Parry, F. (2012), "E‐publishing and Digital Libraries: Legal and Organizational Issues", Online Information Review, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 143-144. https://doi.org/10.1108/oir.2012.36.1.143.2

This is an edited work with contributions from subject specialists from around the world, but mainly Greece. There are two sections, the first looking at organisational issues, and the second, larger section, at legal considerations.

There is an odd mix of general information and highly specialist chapters in both sections, but mainly in the first. For instance, there are informative but sometimes too general surveys such as the chapters on the history of digital libraries, music libraries, e‐books in digital libraries plus an examination of collaboration through digital libraries. There are also complex and quite technical chapters on such topics as interoperability and quality in libraries and encoding models for scholarly literature. The book does cover the ground well, however, and this is most evident in the second section, where the authors deal with the principles as well as details of legal issues of digital libraries. As is often the case when discussing legal issues, the devil is in the detail, but it is a tribute to the editors and authors that these issues are not bogged down with material only lawyers would understand.

All of the chapters are well researched and have extensive references to directives and statutes but make a point of internationalising the content and comparing different interpretations from around the world. Among the many chapters in this section which stand out are studies on moral rights and limits, “orphan” works where ownership is uncertain, copyright, intellectual property, open access and file sharing (a legal minefield), two excellent chapters on newspapers and audiovisual works and an informative chapter on personal data protection which somehow fails to mention the hugely contentious US Patriot Act.

I would not describe this as a handbook or reference tool for librarians (despite the prominent “premier reference source” in bold red letters on the front), but it does contain much valuable material and is generally well researched and well written. Anyone interested in the development and management of digital libraries will find something of interest in this comprehensive global survey.

In keeping with the subject of this book this is also published as an e‐book, and individual chapters can be downloaded from the IGI Global website. This might an option for those who are put off by the high cost of this book and who may want to cherry pick the chapters of particular specialist interest.