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- Description
- About the authors
When your public library invites the community to its spaces—a meeting room, an auditorium, bulletin board, or exhibit case—you take on the responsibility to uphold First Amendment rights of free expression. That includes the members of your frontline staff, who are busy fielding calls and responding to emails. Grounded in the authors' expert guidance, this e-book will give your staff the knowledge they need to keep your library out of messy legal problems. The convenient Qand A format offers straightforward answers to common situations, addressing such topics as:
- the legal concept of "public forum" and how it applies to meeting rooms and the outside grounds of the library;
- the rights of religious groups to use library spaces;
- understanding the balance between free speech rights and offensive ideas or behavior; and
- dealing with groups with discriminatory policies.
Providing authoritative answers backed up with case citations for your trustees and attorneys, this e-book will ensure you feel confident serving your community while staying within the law.
Mary Minow
Mary Minow is a consultant with LibraryLaw.com. She has worked as an attorney, as a public library branch manager, and as an online database ocnsultant. She has taught as an adjunct professor of library law at San Jose State University's School of Library and Information Science. In addition, she has served as a library commissioner for the Cupertino (Calif.) Public Library, and is currently the president of the California Association of Library Trustees and Commissioners. Minow received an A.M.L.S. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a J.D. from Stanford University.
Tomas A. Lipinski
Tomas A. Lipinski has worked in a variety of legal settings, including the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. He taught at the American Institute for Paralegal Studies and at Syracuse University College of Law. In summers he is a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. From 1999 to 2003, during summers, he taught at the Department of Information Science, School of Information Technology, at the University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. Professor Lipinski was the first named member of the Global Law Faculty, Faculty of Law, University of Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), Belgium, in fall 2006, where he continues to lecture annually at its Centre for Intellectual Property Rights and Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and ICT. Prior to becoming Executive Associate Dean at Indiana University School of Library and Information Science, in 2011, he was Director of the MLIS program at the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Beginning in January 2013, he will be Director of the School of Library and Information Science, Kent State University in Ohio. Author of The Complete Copyright Liability Handbook for Librarians and Educators, he researches, teaches, publishes, and speaks widely on issues relating to information and Internet law and policy, especially copyright in schools, libraries, and other information settings. He holds a law degree from Marquette University, a master of laws degree from the John Marshall Law School, and a doctorate in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
Gretchen McCord
Gretchen McCord is an attorney and librarian, focusing on intellectual property in digital formats. Previously an academic librarian, she practiced law for 9 years before starting her legal advising and training consultancy. She has taught as an adjunct at both university and community college levels in the areas of copyright, privacy, trademark, and First Amendment law. A frequent speaker, she is the author of Copyright in Cyberspace: Questions and Answers for Librarians, What You Need to Know About Privacy Law: A Guide for Librarians and Educators, and Fair Use: The Secrets No One Tells You.