Bókasafnið - 01.07.2017, Qupperneq 34

34 Bókasafnið
Abstract
Th is article reports on a project, spanning the years 2013
to 2015, that assisted living Icelandic authors in opening
access to out-of-print books that they wished to make pub-
licly available. While this eff ort was small in scale, it sheds
light on the complexities of releasing still-in-copyright
works by living authors under a Creative Commons license.
Th e project worked primarily with books that had been dig-
itized by Google and included in HathiTrust’s collections.
Th e project showed that Icelandic authors of older scholarly
works were generally very interested in releasing them to
the public at no charge by changing their rights status in
HathiTrust. Meanwhile, authors who wished to release
works that had not already been scanned were sometimes
frustrated in their eff orts to do so. Th e article concludes
with some refl ections on the benefi ts and drawbacks of
author-by-author rights clearance, as compared to other
ways of increasing the accessibility of out-of-print titles.
Introduction and background
Over the years 2013 to 2015, the writer (with help from
other staff members of the Reykjavík Academy and
Dagsbrún Library) assisted a number of living Icelandic
authors in making previously published books available at
no charge through the Internet.
Th e original impetus for the project came from requests
by living Icelandic authors to digitize their own previously
published work. At the time the writer of this article spent
one day a week working for the Dagsbrún Library in
Reykjavík. Th e Dagsbrún Library (Bókasafn Dagsbrúnar in
Icelandic; www.bokasafndagsbrunar.is) was founded in
1956, and originally served the members of one of
Iceland’s trade unions. Since 2003, it has been housed at the
Reykjavík Academy (www.akademia.is).1 It contains about
14,000 volumes.
Several members of the Academy had previously published
books which they wished to make publicly available. Look-
ing for advice, they approached the writer, who was already
running an open-access scholarly journal. Th ese books were
scholarly, with a limited readership and negligible comercial
viability. Th ey existed in paper format only, had been pub-
Assisting living authors in opening
access to their in-copyright works:
a report from Iceland
Ian Watson, Ph.D. starfar sem dósent hjá hönnunardeild norska tækni- og vísindaháskólans
(NTNU) í Gjøvik í Noregi.
1. Th e Reykjavík Academy is an association of independent Icelandic scholars who share offi ce space. Its members’ interests range
across the social sciences and humanities. Some support themselves with grants and book contracts, several work as translators,
others are fi nishing degrees at foreign universities, and a few support themselves with their own private funds. A few are employed
at other institutions but have chosen to work within the collegial atmosphere of the Academy. A few are retirees who wish to remain
active in scholarship. Th e Academy’s funding comes both from the rent paid by individual scholars as well as a modest government
subsidy.
Greinin fj allar um verkefni sem unnið var á árunum 2013-2015, að aðstoða núlifandi íslenska
höfunda að opna aðgang að bókum sem ekki fengust lengur á prenti, sem þeir vildu gera að-
gengilegar almenningi. Þetta verkefni var smátt í sniðum en bregður ljósi á fl ækjustig þegar verk
sem eru enn í höfundarétti eftir höfunda sem eru enn á lífi er dreift með Creative Commons leyfi .
Að mestu var unnið með bækur sem Google hefur skannað inn og eru í safni HathiTrust. Í ljós kom
að íslenskir höfundar að gömlum fræðilegum verkum eru jafnan áhugasamir um að dreifa þeim meðal
almennings án greiðslu, með því að breyta réttindastöðu verkanna í HathiTrust. Höfundar verka sem ekki voru enn
skönnuð inn en vildu dreifa þeim á sama hátt lentu stundum í vanda að koma þeim í dreifi ngu. Greininni lýkur með
hugleiðingum um kosti og galla þess að losa um réttindi höfunda, eins af öðrum, borið saman við aðrar leiðir til að
auka aðgengileika verka sem ekki fást lengur á prenti.