Category: Copyright

The Public-Access Computer Systems Review, an Open Access Journal, Was Launched 30 Years Ago This August

On 8/16/1989, the University of Houston Libraries launched The Public-Access Computer Systems Review (PACS Review). Its first issue was published in January 1990.

What were some of the distinguishing characteristics of this early digital journal?

  • It was a born-digital journal. Major journal publishers, such as Elsevier, would experiment with providing access to born-print journals in university settings starting in the mid-1990's.
  • It was peer reviewed by a distinguished international editorial board with members from Canada, the USA and the UK.
  • It was officially published by an research library.
  • It was a library and information science journal with librarians primarily acting as editors and editorial board members.
  • It allowed authors to retain copyright.
  • It had special copyright provisions for noncommercial use.
  • It was freely available.
  • It adopted an accelerated publication schedule to publish articles as quickly as possible.
  • It published articles by influential authors, such as Stevan Harnad, John Kunze, John Price Wilkin, Ann Okerson, Vicky Reich, and John Unsworth.
  • It allowed authors to publish updated versions of their articles.
  • It was issued an ISSN number in 1990.
  • It was indexed by three major index and abstracting services.

Below is a description of the journal. For information about other early digital publishing projects by libraries, see the Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography.

History of the Journal

After being authorized by Robin N. Downes, the University of Houston Libraries' visionary Director, the journal was announced on the PACS-L discussion list on August 16, 1989. A call for papers was issued on October 16, 1989. The publication of the first issue was announced on January 3, 1990. The journal was cataloged on OCLC and assigned an ISSN number (1048-6542) by the Library of Congress National Serials Data Program on February 1, 1990.

Initially, the journal published scholarly papers (Communications section), columns, and reviews. Papers in the Communications section were selected by the Editor-in-Chief and the Associate Editor, Communications. A private mailing list was utilized for communication with editorial staff and Editorial Board members. Most communication with authors was done via e-mail, including paper submission.

The PACS Review was published three times a year. New issue announcements were distributed as e-mail messages on the PACS-L discussion list, and users retrieved the ASCII article files from the University of Houston's LISTSERV via e-mail. (LISTSERV distribution was suspended in 1999.)

Authors retained the copyright to PACS Review articles, and they gave the University of Houston the nonexclusive right to publish the articles in the journal and in future publications. Authors could republish their articles elsewhere, but they agreed to mention prior publication of the articles in the PACS Review within these works. Copying of PACS Review articles was permitted for educational, noncommercial use by academic computer centers, individual scholars, and libraries.

On October 29, 1991, the journal adopted a more flexible publication schedule that reduced article publication time.

A Refereed Articles section of the journal was announced on November 11, 1991, and a call for papers was issued on February 6, 1992. The Refereed Articles section included papers that were peer reviewed by Editorial Board members using a double-blind review procedure, which was usually conducted via e-mail. The publication of the first refereed paper was announced on April 6, 1992.

Between 1992 and 1996, the first five volumes of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review were also published in book form by the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA). Walt Crawford prepared the camera-ready copy for these volumes and Charles W. Bailey, Jr. provided editorial support.

Starting on April 6, 1992, PACS Review issue publication announcements were also distributed on the PACS-P list.

On January 29, 1994, the distribution of the journal via University of Houston Libraries' Gopher server was announced. (Gopher distribution was suspended in 1998.) The journal ceased publishing reviews in 1994.

On March 9, 1995, the distribution of the journal via University of Houston Libraries' Web server was announced.

Starting with the first issue of volume six (March 21, 1995), the PACS Review: (1) published articles in both ASCII and HTML formats, (2) offered HTML articles with both internal and external links, and (3) gave authors the option of updating the HTML version of their articles. The first updated article was "Network-Based Electronic Publishing of Scholarly Works: A Selective Bibliography" by Charles W. Bailey, Jr., which was updated 25 times.

At the end of 1996, Mr. Bailey stepped down as Editor-in-Chief.

Pat Ensor and Thomas C. Wilson became Editors-in-Chief in January 1997. They edited volumes eight (1997) and nine (1998). Publication of the last issue was announced on June 18, 1998. Papers were under consideration for publication until August 2000, when the journal ceased operation.

During its nine years of publication, the PACS Review published 42 issues that included 112 articles, columns, reviews, and editorials.

The PACS Review was indexed in Current Index to Journals in Education, Information Science Abstracts, and Library Literature.

The journal is archived on the Internet Archive and the Texas Digital Library.

Editorial Staff

Editors-in-Chief

  • Charles W. Bailey, Jr., 1989-1996
  • Pat Ensor, 1997-2000
  • Thomas C. Wilson, 1997-2000

Associate and Copy Editors

  • Leslie Dillon, Associate Editor (1990) and Associate Editor, Columns (1991-1997)
  • Elizabeth A. Dupuis, Associate Editor, Columns (1997-2000)
  • John E. Fadell, Copy Editor (1998-2000)
  • Andrea Bean Hough, Associate Editor, Communications (1997-2000)
  • Mike Ridley, Associate Editor (1989-1990) and Associate Editor, Reviews (1991)
  • Dana Rooks, Associate Editor, Communications (1991-1997)
  • Robert Spragg, Associate Editor, Technical Support (1996-2000)
  • Roy Tennant, Associate Editor, Reviews (1992-1993)
  • Ann Thornton, Associate Editor, Production (1995-2000)

Editorial Board Members

  • Ralph Alberico (1992-2000)
  • George H. Brett II (1992-2000)
  • Priscilla Caplan (1994-2000)
  • Steve Cisler (1992-2000)
  • Walt Crawford (1989-2000)
  • Lorcan Dempsey (1992-2000)
  • Pat Ensor (1994-1996)
  • Nancy Evans (1989-2000)
  • Stephen Harter (1997-2000)
  • Charles Hildreth (1992-2000)
  • Ronald Larsen (1992-2000)
  • Clifford Lynch (1992-2000)
  • David R. McDonald (1989-2000)
  • R. Bruce Miller (1989-2000)
  • Ann Okerson (1997-2000)
  • Paul Evan Peters (1989-1996)
  • Mike Ridley (1992-2000)
  • Peggy Seiden (1995-2000)
  • Peter Stone (1989-2000)
  • John E. Ulmschneider (1992-2000)

Columnists

  • Priscilla Caplan (1992-1998)
  • Walt Crawford (1989-1995)
  • Martin Halbert (1990-1993)

Use Statistics

Only partial use statistics are available for the journal. LISTSERV use statistics were not tallied. From 1994 through 1996, the journal received over 81,000 Gopher requests. From March 1995 through 2006, the journal received over 4.2 million Web file requests.

Articles About the Journal

Speech about the Journal

Reviews of the Journal

A Look Back at 30 Years as an Open Access Publisher | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

Papers by James Boyle, Cory Doctorow, Pamela Samuelson, Jessica Litman, and Others: The Past and Future of The Internet: A Symposium for John Perry Barlow

The Duke Law & Technology Review has published a special issue: The Past and Future of The Internet: A Symposium for John Perry Barlow (entire issue file).

Here's an excerpt from the introduction by James Boyle:

John Perry Barlow passed away on Feb 7th, 2018. John Perry's name is generally followed by a long list of qualities: poet, lyricist, rancher, civil libertarian, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, teller-of-stories, organizer of parties, bringer of light. Good friend. Certainly he was all of these. The picture above gives you some sense of his personality. But he was also the author of two influential essays in the very early days of the World Wide Web—A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace and Selling Wine Without Bottles: The Economy of Mind on the Global Net. . . .

Rather than offer a simple Festschrift for Barlow, this symposium uses those two essays as the jumping off point for a reflection on the current state of the digital world.

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"Consortial RightsStatements.org Implementation and Faceted Search for Reuse Rights in Digital Library Materials"

Wilhelmina Randtke, Randy Fischer, and Gail Lewis have published "Consortial RightsStatements.org Implementation and Faceted Search for Reuse Rights in Digital Library Materials" in the Code4Lib Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

The Florida Academic Library Services Cooperative (FALSC) makes available digital library hosting free-of-charge to all institutions of Florida public higher education. 21 institutions participate in the Islandora digital library platform hosted through FALSC. Centralized digital library hosting through FALSC, or its predecessor consortium, has been available since 1994. Meanwhile, the RightsStatements.org standard, which provides a controlled vocabulary for indicating the copyright status of digital library material, was released in 2016. After the standard was released, participating libraries expressed interest in implementing RightsStatements.org for existing digital content. During Fall 2018 and Spring 2019, FALSC implemented RightsStatements.org values on Islandora sites. This article describes the process undertaken by FALSC, the lessons learned, and recommendations for libraries looking to implement RightsStatements.org values.

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"The CASE Act: The Road to Copyright Trolling is Paved with Good Intentions"

Stan Adams has published "The CASE Act: The Road to Copyright Trolling is Paved with Good Intentions " in the Center for Democracy & Technology Blog.

Here's an excerpt:

The bill would establish a Copyright Claims Board (CCB) in the Copyright Office. This would not be a court and would be entirely separated from the court system. The only option to appeal any of the CCB's determinations, based on the CCB's legal interpretation, would be to ask the Register of Copyrights to review the decision. It would be theoretically possible to ask a federal court to review the determination, but only on the grounds that the CCB's determination was "issued as a result of fraud, corruption, misrepresentation, or other misconduct" or if the CCB exceeded its authority. So if you disagree with the CCB's legal interpretation, or even its competence to make a decision, you are out of luck. This raises red flags about potential due process and separation of powers problems under the Constitution.

The "small claims" part of the bill is also troubling, in that the CCB can award damages up to $30,000 per proceeding. This amount is only considered small in the context of copyright statutory damages, which range between $750-30,000 per work infringed, unless the infringement was willful, in which case, damages can be $150,000 per work. The $30K cap is a 2x-10x multiple of the maximum awards for small claims courts in 49 of 50 states. . . .

Even though the Supreme Court recently ruled that the registration process must be completed (either the Copyright Office granted or denied the application for registration) before filing infringement claims, registration is not required to bring an action under the CASE Act. This leaves everyone (other than the original author/photographer) with no guaranteed way to determine who holds the rights to unregistered works. Even if you identified someone as a potential rightsholder, it could be difficult or impossible to verify their claim of ownership without the official recognition by the Copyright Office. So even if you are acting in good faith and attempt to obtain permission before using a work, you may not be able to do so and there is no guarantee that you will have obtained permission from the correct party, leaving you exposed to claims via the CASE Act.

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"Library and Information Science Curriculum in a Changing Professional Landscape: The Case of Copyright Education in the United States"

Dick Kawooya et al. have published "Library and Information Science Curriculum in a Changing Professional Landscape: The Case of Copyright Education in the United States" in the Journal of Copyright in Education and Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

Despite the importance placed on copyright and intellectual property literacy by the American Library Association, as evidenced in the accreditation standards, issues pertaining to copyright education remain marginal in the library and information science (LIS) curriculum and research. Today, copyright intersects with every library and information service in any type of information institution, yet few librarians get copyright training as part of the formal LIS curriculum in library schools. Lack of copyright education leaves many librarians unable to properly identify and address copyright issues in the workplace. This paper offers a critical analysis of LIS programs over the past 10–12 years with a specific focus on trends in the teaching of copyright matters. Employing a qualitative methodology with a mixed-method approach, the authors analyzed the syllabi of courses dedicated to copyright and intellectual property offered at select LIS programs. The goal was to understand what the copyright courses cover, how they are taught, instructional sources and resources, and curriculum changes over time, where applicable. Findings show that the few LIS programs offering copyright courses have rigorous and dynamic copyright curriculum that constantly changes with the evolving copyright environment. The main takeaway and recommendation is that some kind of coordination is needed in the teaching of copyright and that LIS programs may need minimum standards for the core curriculum of copyright courses. The coordinating mechanism will ensure that periodic review of the core curriculum occurs and takes into account the rapid changes in the different library environments where library students work.

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CASE Act: "Life-Altering Copyright Lawsuits Could Come to Regular Internet Users Under a New Law Moving in the Senate"

The EFF has released "Life-Altering Copyright Lawsuits Could Come to Regular Internet Users Under a New Law Moving in the Senate."

Here's an excerpt:

In short, the bill would supercharge a "copyright troll" industry dedicated to filing as many "small claims" on as many Internet users as possible in order to make money through the bill’s statutory damages provisions. Every single person who uses the Internet and regularly interacts with copyrighted works (that's everyone) should contact their Senators to oppose this bill.

Making it so easy to sue Internet users for allegedly infringing a copyrighted work that an infringement claim comes to resemble a traffic ticket is a terrible idea. This bill creates a situation where Internet users could easily be on the hook for multiple $5,000 copyright infringement judgments without many of the traditional legal safeguards or rights of appeal our justice system provides.

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"Copyright Literacy and the Role of Librarians as Educators and Advocates: An International Symposium"

Jane Secker, Chris Morrison, and Inga-Lill Nilsson have published "Copyright Literacy and the Role of Librarians as Educators and Advocates: An International Symposium" in the Journal of Copyright in Education and Librarianship.

Here's an excerpt:

The paper is inspired by the opening panel of the International Federation of Library Associations’ (IFLA) World Library and Information Congress off-site meeting held in Poland in August 2017 on models for copyright education. . . . The members of the panel considered the rationale for copyright education, why it might be viewed as part of wider information literacy initiatives, and the specific challenges and opportunities that it presents.

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