Oppenheim, Charles, Muir, Adrienne, & Korn, Naomi. Information Law: Compliance for Librarians, Information Professionals, and Knowledge Managers. London: Facet Publishing, 2020. 9781783303663, $63.00 Reviewed by Jennifer Matthews (Collection Strategy Librarian, Rowan University) <matthewsj@rowan.edu> Information Law: Compliance for Librarians, Information Professionals, and Knowledge Managers is a reference work regarding United Kingdom (UK) copyright law as of November 2019. Oppenheim, Muir, & Korn compiled this work to assist library, information, and knowledge (LIK) workers about copyright practices so that they would be better informed. The authors are strong advocates of ongoing training of staff and organizational stakeholders surrounding copyright practices as a way to better negotiate data retention, freedom of information inquiries, organizational policies, documentation, systems, etc. The authors are all experts in the field of information law and libraries. Charles Oppenheim is an Honorary Fellow of CILIP, a member of the Legal Advisory Board of the European Commission, and of the Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance. Naomi Korn is a managing director of NKCC, the consulting firm that she founded. Adrienne Muir is Professor of Information Management at Robert Gordon University, UK. The book is organized around the “compliance methodology” developed by Oppenheim, Muir, & Korn. This methodology is meant to aid LIK workers to establish frameworks that assist with copyright compliance in a “risk-aware environment” that also optimizes access and use (p. xix). The authors use this methodology throughout the eleven chapters to explain UK copyright in a clear and approachable manner. As such, the chapters feature an introduction to their subject, case studies
and definitions for applicability, top tips for practical use, and further reading in certain areas. Also included is a discussion of the GDPR (European Union General Data Protection Regulation Act) and what organizations should be cognizant of in their overall practices and policies. The book begins with a general introduction to UK copyright over chapters one through three and then moves to an introduction to law governance in chapter four. Chapter five covers the need for policies including the use of checklists and how to resolve conflicts. Chapters six through eight provide examples of how to put copyright policies into practice at various organizations through procedures, documentation, and activities, while chapter ten advocates for the ongoing training needed to keep all interested parties up-to-date. Finally, chapter 11 discusses future areas surrounding UK copyright and issues that should be considered. As part of the accessibility of this book, Oppenheim, Muir, & Korn have also included five Appendixes that include possible policy examples, a sample data protection policy, a sample private organization contractual terms for online access to a database service, and a template for data protection privacy. These examples allow the reader to adapt a model for usage from the text rather than starting from scratch thus incorporating the ideas presented throughout the book into practice. If organizations and LIK workers generally incorporated a regular review of copyright policies as well as a training schedule as suggested by Oppenheim, Muir, & Korn, these workers would find this work accessible and easy to read. Thus, this book would be a good edition to any training program for those that are involved with UK copyright practices. ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this available somewhere in my shared network. (I probably do not need this book, but it would be nice to get it within three to five days via my network catalog.)
Booklover — Pondering Poetry Column Editor: Donna Jacobs (Retired, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425) <donna.jacobs55@gmail.com>
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nfortunately, the previous Booklover column had a title with a foreshadowing: “Rhyme, Russian, Revolution, and Reason.” And as events unfolded on the international front, I kept thinking about Brodsky and his statement about Anna Akhmatova’s poems: “They will survive because language is older than state and because prosody always survives history. In fact, it hardly needs history; all it needs is a poet, and Akhmatova was just that.” Maybe pondering poetry, rhythms and sounds is timely and necessary. Of the 118 laureates listed from 1901-2021, 51 list poetry among their literature genre. At random, the following poems of four Nobel Literature Laureates were chosen for pondering:
30 Against the Grain / June 2022
“Marseilles” by Frédéric Mistral (1904) “Thou fair Marseilles, who openest on the sea Thy haughty eyes and gazest languidly, As though naught else were worthy to behold, And, though the winds rage, dreamest but of gold, When Lazarus preached to thee, thou didst begin Those eyes to close, and see the night within, And to the fountain of l’Huveaune speeding, The source whereof Magdaleue’s tears were feeding, Didst wash thy sins away; and in this hour Art proud once more; but other storms may lower. Forget not, then, amid thy revelries, Whose tears they are that bathe thine olive-trees!”
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