HathiTrust’s CRMS Project Win’s ALA’s L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award
HathiTrust’s CRMS Project (Copyright Review Management System) is the American Library Association’s 2016 winner of the L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award. The award recognizes CRMS’ dedication to creating a “balanced U.S. Copyright system through advocacy for a robust fair use doctrine and public domain”. It is named for L. Ray Patterson, a key legal figure who explained and justified the importance of users’ rights to information in his 1991 book, The Nature of Copyright: A Law of Users’ Rights. The book looks at the historical context of copyright and argues that its constitutionally ordained purpose is to promote the public welfare by the advancement of knowledge.
HathiTrust’s CRMS Project enabled a collaborative team of volunteers from HathiTrust partner libraries to determine the public domain status of hundreds of thousands works in the HathiTrust digital library. The CRMS Project began in 2008 and was funded generously with three grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
Librarians and staff from UC Irvine, UC Los Angeles, UC San Francisco, and CDL participated in CRMS from 2011 through the IMLS grant end date this February, contributing over 50,000 individual reviews of HathiTrust volumes. Work on the project is continuing at some member libraries.
Congratulations to HathiTrust, to the CRMS Project leaders, and to the many volunteers who contributed copyright reviews!
For More Information
ALA: About the L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award
CDLInfo: Opening More Books for Public Access – HathiTrust’s CRMS Project