Owning and Using Scholarship: An IP Handbook for Teachers and Researchers

Attorney Smith (director, Office of Copyright and Scholarly Communications, Duke Univ. Libs.) tackles the subject of intellectual property law, relating arguments and concepts most relevant to scholarship and teaching. The author achieves this goal in plain English, quite an accomplishment considering the complexity of the topic. But that's not to say Smith pulls any punches. He guides the reader down the trail of relevant cases, explaining where intellectual property laws are in flux and why. Most helpful are the examples called out in text with a large black bar in which Smith explicates real-world situations, allowing the reader to draw parallels and make comparisons. The coverage is ample as well, ranging from what intellectual property law is and why it matters to questions of ownership, using copyrighted works in scholarship, copyright management and dissemination of scholarship, and licensing and technological measures. Smith also gives fair use and Creative Commons licensing plenty of stage time. A competing title, Donna L. Ferullo's Managing Copyright in Higher Education, offers a librarian's perspective. While Smith is not a librarian, he shows his awareness of library challenges throughout.