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Dibner Library Copyright and Fair Use Compliance

Guidelines for Materials Placed on Reserve

Instructors placing physical materials on traditional course reserve in the library, or posting materials directly to online courses for the purpose of not-for-profit instructional support are responsible for being cognizant of and applying the copyright compliance guidelines observed by Polytechnic Institute of NYU. These guidelines also apply whether the library or the individual instructor is posting materials in the electronic reserve system or in online course platforms such as Blackboard. Dibner Library copyright compliance guidelines for materials placed on reserve are based on:

The Library’s interpretation of Section 107 Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair Use of Title 17 (Copyrights) of U.S. Code;
Section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
The nature of the copyrighted work;
Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

As part of our effort to comply with the copyright law, the Dibner Library reserves the right to reject course reserve materials and other requests that violate this law.

Interlibrary Loan

All outgoing articles that are copied or printed come from the library’s collection. Materials sent out to other institutions are stamped with the following notice:

Course Reserve Procedure

Paper Reserves

Materials are placed on reserve at the request of the professor
They are kept behind the service desk and are available primarily to students taking the course.
For journal articles or book chapters the full citation is available on the front page. We will only keep one copy of a given item on reserve.
All copies are removed at the end of the semester and either returned to faculty or discarded.
An Excel file is maintained for all materials placed on reserve .

Library Electronic Reserves (Instructional Materials)

Materials placed on E-Reserves are kept for a semester
All materials are accessible thru the library’s catalog and are password protected
Files are stored on the library’s server

Library Scanning Service

This service is available only to faculty. It is the responsibility of faculty members to follow copyright and fair use guidelines.
Copyrighted materials such as journal articles or book chapters are scanned according to “fair use” guidelines. We do not scan entire books (and not more than 20% of any book for any course)
Unless requested by the professor we do not place scanned materials on Electronic Reserves.
All hardcopy and digital files are given to the professor.