University of Michigan Library Will Use Creative Commons Licenses for Its Works

The University of Michigan Library has announced that it will use Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial licenses for works that it creates for which the Regents of the University of Michigan hold the copyrights.

Here's an except from the press release:

University Librarian Paul Courant said, "Using Creative Commons licenses is another way the University Library can act on its commitment to the public good. By marking our copyrighted content as available for reuse, we offer the University community and the public a rich set of educational resources free from traditional permissions barriers." . . .

All original copyrighted material that is created by Library staff and in which the copyright belongs to the Regents of the University of Michigan will be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial license. This includes bibliographies, research guides, lesson plans, and other resources. For some samples of the kinds of excellent resources that will now be available for adaptation and re-use, see our many Library Research Guides http://www.lib.umich.edu/guides/, the Usability Studies produced by the Library's Usability Working Group http://www.lib.umich.edu/usability/projects/projects.html, or the tutorials for using spatial and numeric data http://www.lib.umich.edu/nsds/spatial_tutorials/.

The Library has begun attaching Creative Commons licenses to content throughout its website, but some pages do not include the license code yet. The licenses will be fully integrated into the Library's new website design, scheduled for release in Fall 2008.