Digital Library Center Blog | UF

The University of Florida Libraries joined the HathiTrust Digital Library to expand digital access to orphan works, as announced July 14, 2011. As of July 19, 2011, the Orphan works list from the University of Michigan is now live. Much of the news on HathiTrust is focused on access to the digitized materials. That’s important and great work, but the orphan works list and clearing rights to make them accessible is enormously important work. Even if HathiTrust was only using the digitized materials as part of the components to power the orphan works list, it would be an excellent use of resources.

Libraries and cultural heritage institutions are always working to find new ways to enable access to more materials for more people. Melissa Levine, the University of Michigan’s lead copyright officer, succinctly explains the importance of the orphan works list and processing done by partners in HathiTrust, stating: “Sharing these orphan works, once we’ve diligently searched for copyright holders, is integral to the mission of the Library.”From Levine’s sentence, the Library could be the University of Michigan Library of the Library as an ideal and concept. Her statement is true for both.

Developing the orphan works list as a step towards great access is essential and exemplary work. I’m thrilled to read each new press release on new members signing up to support HathiTrust’s work on access to orphan works, and proud to be with an institution that has already done so.

The Haiti Press Network has an article on the digitization of Hatian law (in French, or translated with Google Translate). Digitizing Haitian law is a major project with great significance because like all democratic societies, access to the law and legal information is necessary for the public to be involved in the democratic process. Many countries, including the US, are still struggling with making laws accessible and comprehensible, and Haiti’s digitization project faces the same challenges and will reap the same rewards. The Haitian law digitization project will present a complete inventory of Haitian law from 1804 within a clear and ease to use database so that lawyers and the general public will have equal access to the law.

The first part of the project is focusing on more recent legal documents, with all documents added eventually. This is a wonderful project and the University of Florida Digital Library Center is excited to be able to contribute to it through the Digital Library of the Caribbean. The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) includes many partners with projects focused on preservation and access for cultural heritage materials and contemporary needs, including many law projects. The Haitian law project embodies the core goals of preservation and access, and the ideal goals of digitization – presenting and preserving the past as it bears on the present through rare cultural materials that relate to current needs and future desires, and presenting them in ways that make them more useful and usable than in their original form. To see actual Haitian law documents, check in the Digital Library of the Caribbean and for more on Haitian law, see “Researching Haitian Law” by Marisol Florén-Romero from FIU (another dLOC partner).