The situation is that reproducing any of a thesis is NOT permitted ONLY so long as the author had expressly stated he/she did not to permit such reproduction. A library notice without such explicit instructions has no legal validity. So the first question is: were the authors of theses specifically asked if they wished to restrict copying? If they did not, you can ignore the notice. if they were asked and agreed to this restriction, then the restriction stands. The library should keep a record of this correspondence. I guess the problem is that current library staff probably don't have the foggiest idea whether the author of some old thesis was asked or not. Under those circumstances, it's best to respect the terms of the notice.
In view of the development of ETHOS, it becomes more important than ever to get a clear explicit statement from each student who submits whether they wish to prevent copying or not, and you should abide by their decision.
To answer Graham's specific queries:
i) it is generally agreed a thesis is an unpublished work
ii) yes, this is enshrined in the law
A good reference source for all of this is Tim Padfield's excellent "Copyright for Archivists and Records Managers", Facet, 2010 - see chapter 5.3.12
Charles
-----Original Message-----
From: A general Library and Information Science list for news and discussion. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Graham Fennell
Sent: 11 May 2010 14:31
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Referencing from theses/dissertations
Dear LIS-LINKers,
There would appear to be a grey area surrounding the legality of quoting from theses. Since the inception of EThOS all of our users submitting a thesis to the library must sign the EThOS copyright statement which says that, “A non-exclusive, non-transferable licence is hereby granted to those using or reproducing, in whole or in part, the material for valid purposes, providing the copyright owners are acknowledged using the normal conventions.”
However, this has now opened up a disparity between recent theses submitted under the EThOS terms (where referencing is expressly allowed) and older theses in our hard copy collection (where referencing is not permitted without the author’s consent). Pre-EThOS, our copyright statement (still to be found in the front of all our theses) stated that it was an infringement of copyright law to photocopy or scan any pages from it without the author’s permission, and that permission must also be sought to use any “quotation from it or information derived from it”. I believe that such statements are common at other university libraries. An academic colleague has challenged this statement in our hard copy theses, insisting that so long as correct referencing is applied then there should be no problem in quoting from them. We would therefore be interested to know:
a) What do other libraries advise their users in relation to quoting from theses in their own collections?
b) Is anyone aware of the legal basis behind inserting such statements at the front of theses i.e. is there a “definitive” legal statement in copyright law supporting the fact that: i) a thesis is an unpublished work, and ii) unpublished works cannot be copied from in any form (photocopying, a fully referenced quote etc.) without express permission from the author?
All information and advice is much appreciated. I will summarise / feedback to the list any advice received.
Thanks and regards,
Graham
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Graham Fennell BA (Hons) MA MCLIP
Subject Librarian for Psychology
University of East London
Library and Learning Services
University House
Water Lane
London E15 4LZ
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Tel: 020 8223 3140
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