Page:The librarian's copyright companion, by James S. Heller, Paul Hellyer, Benjamin J. Keele, 2012.djvu/257

 Coordinated by the Association of Research Libraries, the Center for Social Media at American University’s School of Communication, and the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University’s Washington College of Law.

Endorsed by the American Library Association and the Association of College and Research Librarians.

INTRODUCTION

The mission of academic and research librarians is to enable teaching, learning, and research. Along with serving current faculty, researchers, and students (especially graduate students), these librarians also serve the general public, to whom academic and research libraries are often open. Finally, academic and research librarians are committed to faculty, researchers, and students of the future, who depend on the responsible collection, curation, and preservation of materials over time.

Copyright law affects the work of academic and research librarians pervasively and in complex ways, because the great bulk of these librarians’ work deals with accessing, storing, exhibiting, or providing access to