SUBJECT 1: Damn it! The library? Pawnee's library department is the most diabolical ruthless bunch of bureaucrats I've ever seen. They're like a biker gang. But instead of shotguns and crystal meth, they use political savvy and shushing. We got a big problem with the library. SUBJECT 2: Punk ass book jockeys. SUBJECT 3: Wait, why do we hate the library? SUBJECT 1: The library is the worst group of people ever assembled in history. They're mean, conniving, rude, and extremely well-read, which makes them very dangerous. [MUSIC PLAYING] CHARLIE BENNETT: You are listening to WREK Atlanta. And this is Lost in the Stacks, the research library rock and roll radio show. I'm Charlie Bennett in the virtual studio with-- I guess we're a holiday crew-- Marlee Givens and Fred Rascoe. Each week on Lost in the Stacks, we pick a theme and then use it to create a mix of music and library talk. Whichever you are here for, we hope you dig it. MARLA GIVENS: That's right, Charlie. Today's show is called Controlled Digital Lending. FRED RASCOE: So the COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot of things about how institutes of higher learning fulfill their educational mission. CHARLIE BENNETT: That's a very diplomatic way to put it, Fred. Academic libraries and archives are certainly no exception. Everything from user services to "in-person" instruction-- in-person in quotes-- to providing safe and comfortable study spaces, it all changes when the library's building closes. MARLA GIVENS: But it's no problem because we've got Zoom and tools like that to teach our students and to hold meetings. We subscribe mostly to electronic resources. We've had virtual online interactions with our patrons for years now. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yes. And I think this is a particular Georgia Tech problem, but what about those pesky print books? MARLA GIVENS: Ooh, I forgot. We still have those. CHARLIE BENNETT: So do many other libraries. How can libraries convert the act of checking out a print book to the act of accessing a digitized copy? Well, the answer is, Controlled Digital Lending. We at Lost in the Stacks are going to do our best to sort it all out. Thankfully, we have a scholarly communications librarian on the team. And we're going to talk about how some big library entities are handling it. FRED RASCOE: And our songs today are about control, allowing access, and things that seem easy at first because free information is rarely free of obligation. So let's start with Free Information by We The People, right here on Lost in the Stacks. [MUSIC PLAYING] That was Free Information by We The People. And we the people of Lost in the Stacks are going to talk about Controlled Digital Lending today. And I want to start by asking you both, Marlee and Charlie, a question. Have you ever checked out a book with OverDrive or Libby or some sort of e-book platform like that from a library? CHARLIE BENNETT: If you had asked me nine months ago, Fred, I would have said, every once in a while, but I don't really like it. But now that I'm in pandemic mode, yeah, I know all about OverDrive and Hoopla. I don't need Libby. I don't need an assistant to the assistant. But yeah, I've been checking out a lot e-books. What about you, Marlee? MARLEE GIVENS: Yes, although I did start earlier I think. But I think maybe because I was doing a lot of commuting via public transportation. So bringing a tablet along, or when I would travel. And I would check out-- and this is kind of getting away from books, but I would check out issues of magazines as well. I tend to prefer the audiobook version, which is kind of a other branch off of the tree of this discussion. But yes. And the funniest thing to me about the services like OverDrive and Hoopla is that they include coloring books. And they don't include, as far as I can tell, mechanism for actually coloring on the screen. And I have yet to figure this out. But yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love them almost as much as I love the print books because they're so easy. FRED RASCOE: Oh, well, see, so here's the bait and switch. Because when we're talking about Controlled Digital Lending, we're not talking about that stuff at all. CHARLIE BENNETT: That stuff being OverDrive? That stuff-- e-book lending? FRED RASCOE: Going to your library website and clicking that book to get the, quote unquote, "e-book version." Because what you're doing there is you're clicking on a licensed copy that your library has subscribed to. And they have permission to loan it out so you can read it on your phone or whatever. Controlled Digital Lending is getting much more into the weeds of copyright law and theory. So I can tell by the look on your face on our virtual screen here, Charlie, that you need me to tell you what I'm talking about here. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, I'm just worried that this is going to be one of those things where the words don't actually mean what they're supposed to mean. And when you put them all together, you get something else. Like, is this actually completely uncontrolled physical stealing? Is that what this is? FRED RASCOE: Well, I think it's a different kind of digital lending. So when librarians talk about Controlled Digital Lending, what they're talking about is taking a print book that's in a collection, digitizing it, and lending that digitized copy of that same print book to a user instead of the physical copy. Not talking about a digitized version that a publisher creates. This is taking that print library book, scanning it, and lending out the digital copy instead. CHARLIE BENNETT: This sounds vaguely like when I was in high school and people didn't want to lend vinyl records out, but they'd give you a cassette tape of it, no problem. FRED RASCOE: Right. Yeah. Home taping is killing music, Charlie. You remember that. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, vinyl is killing the mp3 industry. FRED RASCOE: And I don't think digital books are killing the book industry, at least not yet. But it's an idea-- this like Controlled Digital Lending-- capital C, capital D, capital L-- was originally postulated by a lawyer/librarian at Georgetown named Michelle Wu. And then later on, some librarians and also lawyers named Kyle Courtney and David Hansen kind of expanded on that in a white paper-- that idea in a white paper. What happens is when a library owns a book, they have some permissions and copyright law to make a copy of that book. And also, there are some permissions in copyright law via fair use that allow usage of a book when a print version is not available. There's also a clause in copyright law called the First Sale Clause that allows libraries-- that's what lending libraries are based on. You can own a book. If you own a book, you can lend it. So there's kind of a theoretical mishmash of all these different copyright laws granted to us that is proposed to allow for Controlled Digital Lending. CHARLIE BENNETT: So let me see if I get this straight, Fred. Controlled Digital Lending is sort of a concept that some librarians came up with to name a kind of hack that they've been doing to be able to check out copies of physical books, digitized copies? Like, well, we think we can do this-- i.e, we think we can check books out. And we think we can make copies for preservation so we can check out those copies if we need to? Is that what that is? FRED RASCOE: Well, hack is such a strong word with such negative connotations. Perhaps, maybe it's a way to use the rights available to us in copyright law to enhance access to print books that, say, in a situation like we're in now where COVID-19 is limiting access to print books, keeps us able to access those books in a different way. CHARLIE BENNETT: So this is a library-generated idea, right? Like the librarians, it's on our side saying, hey, we think copyright law lets us do this thing. FRED RASCOE: Yes, under very certain conditions. The library has to own the book and they have to digitize that book that they own. They have to strictly limit the access to their community of users for a certain time period and to make sure that the user doesn't copy and distribute. But, yes, essentially that's what we're saying. CHARLIE BENNETT: Fred, I'm going to open a can of worms. So how do publishers feel about Controlled Digital Lending? FRED RASCOE: Oh, those are some wormy worms, Charlie. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yes. So let me real quick explain why I just asked. Fred, it sounds like this is trying to circumvent the carefully controlled licensed and monetized e-book system that has grown around libraries and publishers, which is why I think it's a hack. FRED RASCOE: Well, right now it's contrived as a way to get to use copyright law to get access. However, it's still mostly theoretical. And the legality of it is going to be tested further in days to come. And we can get into how it's actually being practically implemented and the challenges of that in the next segment, I think. MARLEE GIVENS: Can I ask another sort of can-of-worms question? How is this different from the Google Books scanning project, which is old news now? FRED RASCOE: Well it's related in a way that one of the most prominent uses of Controlled Digital Lending is done by an organization that heavily relied on Google Book scanning to lend their digital copies. And I think we can get into some high-profile organizations that are using Controlled Digital Lending and the justifications and the legal challenges that are coming along with those in the next segment. CHARLIE BENNETT: We'll be back to talk more about Controlled Digital Lending and these cans of worms after a music set. FRED RASCOE: File this set under TJ211.S566. [ROCK MUSIC] [MUSIC - NAKED EYES, "REMOTE CONTROL"] - (SINGING) You got me on remote control. You got me on remote control. You got me on remote control. MARLEE GIVENS: You just heard Remote Control by Naked Eyes. Began our set with Uncontrollable Passion by Die Kreuzen, songs about various degrees of control. [MUSIC PLAYING] FRED RASCOE: Welcome back to Lost in the Stacks. And we're talking about Controlled Digital Lending. So in the first segment, we tried very quickly to describe what Controlled Digital Lending is-- loaning a digital version of a print book that a library owns. Now, we started opening some cans of worms at the end of that last segment. And the biggest can of worms I think that we started to open was the legality of it. In March, obviously a lot of universities suddenly found themselves closed and moving to instruction primarily online. And this means that libraries were closed, too. And so digital items that the library licensed, you know like we talked about the OverDrive books that we talked about in the first segment, those were obviously still available. But print books, which often don't have that digital counterpart, were not available. So there were a couple of organizations that really stepped into the fray. One of them was HathiTrust, of which Georgia Tech is a member. Now, HathiTrust is a digital library. 95% of their collection is scanned versions of books that were scanned by Google in their scanning project. Typically, HathiTrust doesn't allow access to the digital copies of their copyrighted works to HathiTrust member libraries. Georgia Tech is a HathiTrust member, by the way. However, due to COVID and all these academic libraries closing and restricting access to their print copies, HathiTrust came up with a solution called Emergency Temporary Access Service. And what that does is it opens up the electronic version of a book to a member library that owns that book so that users can still have access. CHARLIE BENNETT: So Fred, is it that Controlled Digital Lending was an idea that was floating around like, hey, let's make this standard practice? And a lot of the-- not exactly infrastructure, but the preparation had been done. Books had been scanned, not turned into e-books, but literally scanned into some kind of file. And then the pandemic sort of gave everyone a chance to say, let's do it. We've got to hurry up and do it because now all the books are in buildings that people aren't going to go into because we're afraid we're going to get sick. FRED RASCOE: Yeah, that's exactly it. This kind of discussion about doing a Controlled Digital Lending project like this certainly was hurried along by the COVID-19 pandemic. And it jumpstarted these projects like this HathiTrust emergency access service. But there is a lot of discussion in the library community right now about this after the pandemic is over. Now right now, HathiTrust limits access to the community of users that are at a particular institution. If that particular institution owns a particular book and they're logged in and authenticated, they can read the electronic copy online. And it's for a limited amount of time and they can't download it. And these are all books that are owned by the libraries in this consortium. It's about 60, 50 or 60 libraries in the HathiTrust consortium. And only people that have access to HathiTrust libraries can access the HathiTrust collection. However, that is Controlled Digital Lending with more strict restrictions on control. And there's another very large organization that has also done some Controlled Digital Lending projects that-- well, things got a little wilder with them. So I'm talking about the Internet Archive. Now they've been doing Controlled Digital Lending, as I described, for, I think it's about 10 years now. I'll have to look at the actual date. But they've been doing Controlled Digital Lending a long time. The Internet Archive is a not for profit organization founded by Brewster Kahle that keeps archives of old websites as they appear. So if you want to see what the, say, the Coca-Cola website looked like five years ago, you can go to the Internet Archive and look at an old version. But they also have been buying print books and scanning them and making them available on their websites through the same kind of Controlled Digital Lending process, a very similar process that I described with the HathiTrust. Some important differences, but they are similar. CHARLIE BENNETT: And am I correct in saying it was a gray area when it comes to copyright and permissions? One can buy a book-- and that whole point of sale kind of stuff means you have the right to do a lot of things with that literal object. You can buy a book and tear it in half. You can buy a book and give it to someone. You can buy a book and sell it to someone, but you're not infringing on the copyright of the author. But then when you make a copy, a literal copy, you're kind of infringing, but then there's special circumstances for libraries-- preservation, historical preservation, or backup copies. But then we get to this moment of, are you letting people look at the copies? FRED RASCOE: Right. And HathiTrust had their own legal challenges a few years ago. And they were found in court to be within the bounds of fair use. It's library-led. It's libraries participating. It's libraries leading the scans, even though the scans were technically done by Google. Libraries were leading those scans. The Internet Archive is Brewster Kahle. And they have decided for themselves in their-- they file nonprofit status, and they'd say in that, we are a library. But that is the only-- it's not officially deemed by any source that they are actually a library. They are saying they are a library. CHARLIE BENNETT: [LAUGHS] FRED RASCOE: And maybe they are. I don't want to-- [CHUCKLES] I don't want to start a fight with Brewster Kahle. MARLEE GIVENS: Ah, that would be such a great thing to pick apart in another show, wouldn't it? FRED RASCOE: But it's important because some of those copyright exceptions are specifically for libraries and archives. And so if the Internet Archive can just say, well, we are a library, and therefore we are going to have these exceptions available to us, and then make their collection available through a Controlled Digital Lending platform, that might get the attention of publishers. MARLEE GIVENS: Has it gotten the attention of publishers? FRED RASCOE: It definitely did, especially because during COVID-19, the Internet Archive went a little further and started something called the National Emergency Library, where they did not limit the digital copy of the print book to a single user at a time. It was not a replacement of-- it was not an exact 1 to 1 replacement of a physical book. They started something called the National emergency library because so many people were without access to print books, that the National Emergency Library allowed multiple people to view a single digitized scan of a print book at a time. And that definitely got the publisher's attention. And they are now facing a lawsuit because of their Controlled Digital Lending practices. MARLEE GIVENS: That is not unlike the lawsuits over digital serves that we're familiar with here now. FRED RASCOE: Right, yeah. Georgia State faced. Yeah. So the lawsuit that Internet Archive is facing right now is ongoing. Not sure how long it's going to last, but it could definitely have implications for whether Controlled Digital Lending is a strategy that libraries can undertake going forward. And I guess in the next segment, we can talk a little bit about possibilities going forward. MARLEE GIVENS: So do you feel like the Internet Archive is trying to force the issue where they sort of asking for this lawsuit to bring the issue in into the daylight? FRED RASCOE: I kind of think that they were. And they're definitely looking at big research library organizations like the Association of Research Libraries to support them in their defense of this lawsuit. So I don't know that anybody wants to get sued, but I think that they were definitely spoiling for a fight. MARLEE GIVENS: We'll talk more about Control Digital Lending on the left side of the hour. [MUSIC PLAYING] TJ USIYAN: Hello, this is TJ Usiyan, also known as Griot Speak. And you are listening to WREK Atlanta. [MUSIC CONTINUES] This is Lost in the Stacks, the one and only research library rock and roll radio show. [MUSIC PLAYING] CHARLIE BENNETT: Today's Lost in the Stacks is called Controlled Digital Lending. For a bit of further explication on why Control Digital Lending is something libraries should be interested in, here's a quote from a white paper on Controlled Digital Lending of library books, by Kyle Courtney of Harvard and David Hansen of Duke University. Quote, "Control Digital Lending helps libraries fulfill their missions in the broadest sense, using technology to increase effective non-discriminatory access to collections for our users and the world. Libraries have faced existential challenges for decades, but have survived in part because of their responsiveness to new technology. As new generations of informed consumers expect immediate digital access to collections, libraries that fail to make their substantial collections available face anew the risk of becoming irrelevant, or at least minimally effective in users' eyes." Well, while you've passed the doomsaying in there, file this set under Z712.J64. [MUSIC - INVISIBLE ANATOMY, "PERMISSION"] - (SINGING) Can we talk in secret codes? Can we talk about our death? [MUSIC - BIG JOE WILLIAMS, "SOMEBODY'S BEEN BORROWING OUR STUFF"] CHARLIE BENNETT: You just heard Somebody's Been Borrowing That Stuff, by Big Joe Williams. And before that, Permission, by Invisible Anatomy, songs about allowing access. [MUSIC PLAYING] FRED RASCOE: Welcome back to Lost in the Stacks, we're talking about Controlled Digital Lending. That is libraries lending a digital copy that is an exact digital copy of a print book which they own in their collection. So in the last segment, we talked a little bit about how Controlled Digital Lending is under legal attack. The specific suit in the courts right now is against the Internet Archive. And it was precipitated by Internet Archive going a little bit beyond Controlled Digital Lending into maybe uncontrolled digital lending to create their National Emergency Library. CHARLIE BENNETT: You mean piracy, Fred. FRED RASCOE: [LAUGHS] And so now there are four major publishers suing them. And whatever happens in this lawsuit could have implications for Controlled Digital Lending in the future. But let's do some-- maybe the word is thought experiments, or think about some possible scenarios. Let's say that we can actually do this going forward. Is Controlled Digital Lending the way to go? And what I mean is, like, even in a non-pandemic situation, when COVID-19 is over, when the vaccines are all distributed, should libraries still keep their collections of print materials sort of behind closed doors, lock and key, inaccessible to facilitate this digital access? CHARLIE BENNETT: Well, Fred, I want to start by saying I'm glad that this is the question that we're going to engage because it's not for us to start saying, oh this is legal or this is immoral or this is how things should be. That's actually happening in the courts, which is a good thing. That's how all the legal rights and protections for publishers and libraries get sorted out. So let's just use our thought experiment to say, we finally understand what Controlled Digital Lending really means and how to do it legally, right? FRED RASCOE: Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: So yeah, I don't want to do it. [LAUGHTER] FRED RASCOE: That's a hard no for you, Charlie. OK. CHARLIE BENNETT: Well, I'm speaking as a patron, as a person who reads books. I've already felt pretty undone by the loss of the physical material book culture that's out there. And the idea of turning the physical book into a luxury object that operates kind of as a signifier for the ability to loan e-books makes me feel sad. But as a librarian, we should totally do that. It's so much easier. FRED RASCOE: Ah, both sides of the issue. What do you think, Marlee? MARLEE GIVENS: Well, yeah, I mean, I became a librarian because I loved the physical-- I loved walking in the stacks, pulling stuff off the shelf at random, touching it. I still read best that way. All of that being said, I have people emailing me all the time needing stuff for their research, and I sometimes find it in these emergency libraries. And they get what they need. They don't have to travel. They don't have to figure out interlibrary loan. I feel like the controls make it just difficult enough that people will still probably prefer to do the traditional lending, interlibrary lending and so on. But a lot of people, this is going to open some opportunities that they would not have had before, especially if they're not able to travel if they have disabilities, if they're in other countries. I feel like this is opening up some possibilities that were not there before that I think should stay open, even after we're all able to go back to normal, which I actually don't think we're going to be able to go back to normal. So I think we'll need to consider all these possibilities. FRED RASCOE: So speaking of opening possibilities and considering some far-out-there possibilities, if with the legal system and laws and everything land on the side of, yes, we can do Controlled Digital Lending, imagine a consortium of libraries getting together and pooling thousands and thousands and thousands of books for populations statewide, region wide. The Controlled Digital Lending has to be a one-to-one one-print copy and one person reading that digital copy at a time. But there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of books that are not New York Times best sellers that are just accessed, pulled off a shelf once every five years. And what if a bunch of libraries got together and said, OK, the entire southeast of the United States is our community of users. And these thousands of books were-- these thousands of in-copyright books were in that collection. And users could just log on and access through the limited access restrictions of Controlled Digital Lending, but they would have access. CHARLIE BENNETT: I mean, it sounds great. It sounds like a solution to a number of problems, especially problems of scarcity. But I think it also reveals that Controlled Digital Lending is essentially just a adaptation to a current situation. And I don't mean a pandemic. I mean the digital reproduction of information and the digital transmission of information. This is books and e-books and publishers and libraries all trying to adapt to-- I'll say innovation, even though that's not that makes me feel bad to say it, literally-- to changes. So Controlled Digital Lending, I think, is the pathway to the next way of libraries purchasing, preserving, and distributing, or allowing access to information. FRED RASCOE: Will that access and that movement come through the work of libraries or through the work of individuals who just happen to have the resources and start an online platform like the Internet Archive? CHARLIE BENNETT: You know, who am I to say? But we've clearly seen that a Controlled Digital Lending version has been happening on pirate sites run by people who think that it's copyleft, not copyright, who think information should be free, free like beer, not like kittens, the whole thing. And ah, I hate to be a broken record, but capitalism and corporatism absorb revolutionary ideas, monetize them, and reestablish them. And we're in the middle of that. We just can't see the end of this process yet. FRED RASCOE: Oh, it's more doom-reading, Charlie. CHARLIE BENNETT: It's just how things happen, dude. I mean, you might as well be sad that a bottle of whiskey gets you drunk. Well, once again we have only scratched the surface of a deep subject that is important to libraries and the world. We'll be back to wrap up our show after a music set. FRED RASCOE: File this set under HC106.6.F77. [MUSIC - THE GEMS, "SAVE YOUR MONEY"] [MUSIC - YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS, "CAKE WALKING] MARLEE GIVENS: You just heard Cake Walking by the Young Marble Giants and before That, Save Your Money, by The Gems. Thoughts about something you thought would be easy, turning out to be difficult and potentially expensive. [MUSIC PLAYING] FRED RASCOE: Today's show is Controlled Digital Lending. OK and Marlee, Charlie, we got another lightning round to wrap up the show. I want you to think of 10 years from now, what will you be doing in the libraries? How will you access libraries? What is an interaction you will have with libraries because of Controlled Digital Lending? CHARLIE BENNETT: From once we get to this place, it won't be that libraries buy books and then check them out to people. It will be more that libraries are the public service for e-book distribution and have much more thorough and costly licenses and archives, or special spots will have the physical books kept for posterity and the occasional cotton glove flipping through. FRED RASCOE: Marlee? MARLEE GIVENS: Ah, that's great. Well, I was thinking primarily about myself in 10 years. First of all, how exciting to be able to do the kinds of text mining digital humanities projects that people are now doing with Victorian literature with the literature of the 20th century. I think that will be very exciting. Personally, I will probably be reading cookbooks from the '50s. FRED RASCOE: I am going to assume that in 10 years, that Controlled Digital Lending is going to apply to audio recordings, specifically music audio recordings as well. And I am going to listen to legal digitized copies of all kinds of rare materials that currently I listen to on YouTube, maybe sometimes not legally. CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, roll the credits using some music that I just happened to have. [MUSIC PLAYING] MARLEE GIVENS: Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library, written and produced by Ameet Doshi, Amanda Pellerin, Charlie Bennett, Fred Rascoe, Marlee Givens, and Wendy Hgenmaier. FRED RASCOE: Today's show was edited and assembled by Charlie and brought to you in part by The Library Collective and their social and professional network League of Awesome Librarians. Find out more at thelibrarycollective.org. CHARLIE BENNETT: Legal counsel and 1200-DPI page scans with 48-bit color depth were provided by the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group in Atlanta, Georgia. MARLEE GIVENS: Special thanks to all libraries for stepping up to meet all the challenges of 2020. And thanks, as always, to each and every one of you for listening. FRED RASCOE: Find us online at lostinthestacks.org. And you can subscribe to our podcast pretty much anywhere you get your audio fix. CHARLIE BENNETT: Next week, we're going into holiday mode, and you'll hear reruns of some of our Christmas episodes, building up to a new litmus on Christmas Day. MARLEE GIVENS: It's time for our last song today. Pandemic or no pandemic, non-access to digital versions of print books could be one more existential threat that libraries will need to overcome to survive. Luckily, Control Digital Lending done right could be the survival kit that libraries need. So let's close with Survival Kit by The Resistance right here on Lost in the Stacks. Have a great weekend, everybody. [MUSIC - THE RESISTANCE, "SURVIVAL KIT"] - (SINGING) I fought in three world wars, all of which I caused. I'm a true pursuit [INAUDIBLE] every wife's divorced. They beat me, of course.