Howdy folks, I have a fun one for the community to discuss, and I would like to get your feedback. As I mentioned before, our campus Disability Services (DS) recently started a video captioning unit. They always seek permissions from the rights holder prior to captioning, apparently required by our Counsel. Until now, from my understanding, the resulting copy in whatever medium has always been given to the hearing impaired student.
However, for the upcoming semester, I have a faculty member who would like for us to purchase 2 copies of a film series that is being sold directly from the filmmaker, that has not and will not be captioned. This faculty member is requesting the titles be captioned by DS, in this case for international students in her class to better understand complex foreign relations concepts, not a hearing impaired student. Further, the students will be required to watch these titles outside of class this semester, so the titles will likely be on library reserve, which would break new ground for us from a policy perspective. Thus far, the Libraries have not been involved in dealing with modified/captioned copies of original content. We are considering this because the instructor (and others) will be using the videos every year in their classes, and this discipline has some hearing impaired students as well as several non-native speakers. Three questions: 1) Does anyone currently circulate captioned/locally modified copies of commercial content in their collection? You can contact me offline, if you think this is sensitive information. 2) What does our filmmaker/producer/distributor community think about the possibility of circulating captioned copies in our general collection? Would your thoughts change if the rights holder gave permission to caption because they could not and originals were made inaccessible so as not to impact market forces? I have considered having our Acquisitions Dept. request a captioning waiver written into the purchase agreement, but I am ethically uncomfortable with making captioning a contract condition. I believe captioning should be protected as an anti-circumvention exemption and covered under fair use (if not ADA), points I may submit for consideration during the next round of Hearings. Best, Scott -- Scott Spicer Media Outreach and Learning Spaces Librarian University of Minnesota Libraries - Twin Cities 341 Walter Library spic0...@umn.edu 612.626.0629 Media Services: lib.umn.edu/media SMART Learning Commons: smart.umn.edu
VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
