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[avidreader]

I've been a lurker for quite some time but finally joined today after a subject  search couldn't answer my question. Hopefully I'm not duplicating anything that has already been posted--my apologies in advance if I am.

I am a postgraduate studying humanities, with an emphasis on early modern books and manuscripts. I will be giving my first paper at a (UK) conference this summer, and will have power point available to show examples of some texts and images I am discussing. Although the original books and pamphlets are (obviously) out of copyright, most of my images are from EEBO, GoogleBooks, and photos from pages of a few facsimiles. Is there an appropriate method of citation for these, do I need to ask for permission in advance, or would I be better off simply not using any images I don't own? I've seen reputable academics in my field show slides of early modern texts without (as far as I have seen) any citation, but I don't know whether they have gotten the images "appropriately" (i.e. by paying large amounts of money for official images from the libraries that hold the texts) or have gone the same downloading route as I.

Any input would be tremendously appreciated.

AvidReader

[concordancia]

I would put a fine print citation at the bottom of each slide. Then it is there, but not distracting. This will also help you personally keep them straight if anyone asks about your sources. Conferences are usually considered fair use, so even if they were, you shouldn't really have any issues.

[euro_trash]

Another alternative would be to create a "works cited" slide at the very end.

[avidreader]

Thanks for the suggestions--I will likely do both! To clarify, for citations, should I cite the book, the website (i.e. GoogleBooks), and also the contributing library?

AvidReader

[seniorscholar]

Thanks for the suggestions--I will likely do both! To clarify, for citations, should I cite the book, the website (i.e. GoogleBooks), and also the contributing library?

AvidReader

This question of course goes well beyond the "legalities" to the *other* purpose of citations -- making it possible for people to find material you've cited for your own use. And I think it would be especially helpful (since Google Books and other online digitizing projects have made it possible for people in your field to use primary sources that would have been very difficult to find even ten years ago) to cite the book, the website, and the contributing library (in either case). Not at all "required" but a generous scholarly move for others interested in the topic or realizing that the image will be useful for a quite different project they're doing. And this mutual scholarly help to one another is one of the main advantages of attending conferences.

[ea15792]

I've been a lurker for quite some time but finally joined today after a subject  search couldn't answer my question. Hopefully I'm not duplicating anything that has already been posted--my apologies in advance if I am.

I am a postgraduate studying humanities, with an emphasis on early modern books and manuscripts. I will be giving my first paper at a (UK) conference this summer, and will have power point available to show examples of some texts and images I am discussing. Although the original books and pamphlets are (obviously) out of copyright, most of my images are from EEBO, GoogleBooks, and photos from pages of a few facsimiles. Is there an appropriate method of citation for these, do I need to ask for permission in advance, or would I be better off simply not using any images I don't own? I've seen reputable academics in my field show slides of early modern texts without (as far as I have seen) any citation, but I don't know whether they have gotten the images "appropriately" (i.e. by paying large amounts of money for official images from the libraries that hold the texts) or have gone the same downloading route as I.

Any input would be tremendously appreciated.

AvidReader

You should obtain copyright permissions for these images.  Of course you need to provide citations, but technically you should obtain copyright for these images.  Although, if it's a one time presentation it's unlikely that it's a big deal if you don't.  I would check with the conference organizers, some require you to have copyright permissions, others don't.

And unfortunately, using copyrighted materials for a one time use for a conference presentation doesn't fall under the fair use guidelines in the US.  However, I don't know about the laws in the UK so they might have exceptions for live presenations and/or one time use.

[verbena]

Reality check: art historians have been showing slides at lectures and academic conferences for over a century without citing the sources for these images, and they've been using digital images without inserting source info on screen since the invention of Powerpoint. It falls safely within the bounds of fair use, both in the US and in Britain.

It's only if you're publishing the images that you have to worry about copyright. Even then, you'd have to ask the publisher in question whether to cite the physical source (the person or institution owning the image), your own source (the book you scanned it from), the owner of the copyright (not always the same as the physical source), or perhaps some combination of the three.

I can see why you might think it could be helpful to include extra info about sources on screen, but it can be distracting to see text while trying to listen to a paper being delivered. It's also tangential -- a bit like providing extra biographical information about an artist when your real point is to make an argument about a painting. If I saw one of my students do this in a dry run I would advise them to remove all that extra info.

A slide at the end is a nice idea, but after you've said your last line and received your standing ovation, do you really think anyone will read a screen of source info? 

Enjoy the conference! 

[doctor_torrseal]

I've been a lurker for quite some time but finally joined today after a subject  search couldn't answer my question. Hopefully I'm not duplicating anything that has already been posted--my apologies in advance if I am.

I am a postgraduate studying humanities, with an emphasis on early modern books and manuscripts. I will be giving my first paper at a (UK) conference this summer, and will have power point available to show examples of some texts and images I am discussing. Although the original books and pamphlets are (obviously) out of copyright, most of my images are from EEBO, GoogleBooks, and photos from pages of a few facsimiles. Is there an appropriate method of citation for these, do I need to ask for permission in advance, or would I be better off simply not using any images I don't own? I've seen reputable academics in my field show slides of early modern texts without (as far as I have seen) any citation, but I don't know whether they have gotten the images "appropriately" (i.e. by paying large amounts of money for official images from the libraries that hold the texts) or have gone the same downloading route as I.

Any input would be tremendously appreciated.

AvidReader

You should obtain copyright permissions for these images.  Of course you need to provide citations, but technically you should obtain copyright for these images.  Although, if it's a one time presentation it's unlikely that it's a big deal if you don't.  I would check with the conference organizers, some require you to have copyright permissions, others don't.

And unfortunately, using copyrighted materials for a one time use for a conference presentation doesn't fall under the fair use guidelines in the US.  However, I don't know about the laws in the UK so they might have exceptions for live presenations and/or one time use.

I am not sure that this is correct.  For one thing, I just looked at a Google Books scan of a public domain book and it doesn't have a copyright notice anywhere.  The "about Google Books" page says that if a book is in the public domain, you are free to download a PDF.  I assume you can also give it away, and it seems unlikely that they could then assert the right to restrict your showing it to an audience.  I'm not sure that they can copyright a scan of a single public domain book.  They would be within their rights to sell you the scan, but they're giving it away for free.  They would also be able to copyright a compilation of public domain items (the law recognizes that creative effort is involved in the act of compilation), but Google at least hasn't.  I do not know about the other sources.

I also don't agree that all conference presentation uses are excluded from fair use.  Fair use has always depended on the fraction and importance of material used.  For example, if you performed an entire copyrighted song, that would usually not be fair use, but if you sang three bars of the melody to illustrate a point, that would probably be considered fair use.  I say probably because fair use is notoriously dependent on interpretation.  Certainly, unless there is a court case that covers use similar to a conference presentation, I don't think you can make a blanket statement that it isn't covered.  It is awfully close to the case of use in a class lecture, which as far as I know is considered fair use, again assuming you don't use too much material (you can show a slide, but you can't photocopy an entire chapter of a book).

In any case, nobody worries about this stuff in conference presentations, in part because it's clear that no economic interests are being harmed and we don't have enough money to bother suing for.  Photocopying class packets is another matter.

[avidreader]

You should obtain copyright permissions for these images.  Of course you need to provide citations, but technically you should obtain copyright for these images.  Although, if it's a one time presentation it's unlikely that it's a big deal if you don't.  I would check with the conference organizers, some require you to have copyright permissions, others don't.

I know some individuals from the organizing school and am almost positive that the conference organizers won't care, but I will certainly check with them anyway.

I am not sure that this is correct.  For one thing, I just looked at a Google Books scan of a public domain book and it doesn't have a copyright notice anywhere.  The "about Google Books" page says that if a book is in the public domain, you are free to download a PDF.  I assume you can also give it away, and it seems unlikely that they could then assert the right to restrict your showing it to an audience.  I'm not sure that they can copyright a scan of a single public domain book.  They would be within their rights to sell you the scan, but they're giving it away for free.  They would also be able to copyright a compilation of public domain items (the law recognizes that creative effort is involved in the act of compilation), but Google at least hasn't.  I do not know about the other sources.

I also don't agree that all conference presentation uses are excluded from fair use.  Fair use has always depended on the fraction and importance of material used.  For example, if you performed an entire copyrighted song, that would usually not be fair use, but if you sang three bars of the melody to illustrate a point, that would probably be considered fair use.  I say probably because fair use is notoriously dependent on interpretation.  Certainly, unless there is a court case that covers use similar to a conference presentation, I don't think you can make a blanket statement that it isn't covered.  It is awfully close to the case of use in a class lecture, which as far as I know is considered fair use, again assuming you don't use too much material (you can show a slide, but you can't photocopy an entire chapter of a book).

I'll be showing a few individual pages (about three). I did find information on EEBO--they require one to get permission from the contributing library and then send the documentation to EEBO as proof before EEBO will grant a second permission for the digital image. ((yikes)). I also couldn't find anything on Google books, but I know they're currently mid-lawsuits, so I'm not sure that they should really be my standard for citation ethics.

I can see why you might think it could be helpful to include extra info about sources on screen, but it can be distracting to see text while trying to listen to a paper being delivered. It's also tangential -- a bit like providing extra biographical information about an artist when your real point is to make an argument about a painting. If I saw one of my students do this in a dry run I would advise them to remove all that extra info.

A slide at the end is a nice idea, but after you've said your last line and received your standing ovation, do you really think anyone will read a screen of source info? 

Ha. My entire graduate department is coming, so I just might get that ovation, but it would probably be as a joke. One can always hope, however.

Would it make more sense (so as not to be distracting with the slides) just to mention the reference in my lecture? Something like, "And in the woodcut on this page of How to Hunt Turtles in Germany, from the Harvard University Library and available on Google Books, the author has . . ." etc? Or is that still too much information?

Still thinking . . . thank you all very much for your input. I suppose at the very least, it can't hurt to ask anyone who might be involved!

[ideagirl]

They would also be able to copyright a compilation of public domain items (the law recognizes that creative effort is involved in the act of compilation)

I hope this doesn't sound pedantic, but FYI, what the law recognizes is that creative effort MAY be involved in the act of compilation. Not all compilations are copyrightable. That may be why Google hasn't copyrighted its compilations--it may not be able to. For example, if they just scan every book they can get their hands on and throw it onto the web, with no organizing principle other than the basic effort to put every public-domain work they can find online, that may lack sufficient creativity and thus not be copyrightable.

However, colleagues might appreciate a cite to Googlebooks so that they can find it themselves.

As you said, though, I wouldn't worry too much about copyright permissions in this context, as long as the conference organizers aren't worried about it (an email to ask them would be a good idea). But copyright permissions apply to copyrighted works, not public domain works.

[verbena]

Would it make more sense (so as not to be distracting with the slides) just to mention the reference in my lecture? Something like, "And in the woodcut on this page of How to Hunt Turtles in Germany, from the Harvard University Library and available on Google Books, the author has . . ." etc? Or is that still too much information?

That sounds like a very good solution if you're showing something special that you've discovered in an archive or private collection, as it showcases the research you've done and satisfies others' curiosity.

In general, though, there's really no need to say "I found this in library X and it's available on Google Books" if anyone can do a web search to find exactly the same thing. It just sounds a bit too close to "the Mark Twain quotation is from Huck Finn, and you can find it on the web" or, worse yet, "this image is from a book I found in the library -- and by library, of course, I mean Hahvahd."