Arnie was recently the featured speaker at an event for the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, D.C. Here are his thoughts.

I had the great pleasure of being the Sandy Peterson Lecture Series luncheon speaker for the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, D.C. meeting on January 20, 2011 at the Georgetown Law Center. LLSDC, which includes librarians from academic institutions, government agencies and private law firms, asked that I address topics ranging from copyright basics, to the differences between sale and license of copyrighted works and proper exploitation of digital documents and videos. As you would expect from a sophisticated group like this, the questions were insightful and challenging, and very focused on practical problems. Society members were particularly concerned about restrictions on reuse of materials, copyright term, orphan works and tips on negotiations with publishers. Before the session, I chatted with a number of the participants, including a senior librarian from the National Science Foundation (NSF), who is working on a project digitizing articles regarding Antarctica. The project poses quite a number of special issues dealing with locating authors and clearing materials from decades ago. Her project gave me a chance to mention the work of Ira Meyer, a close friend from elementary school days, who is now a renowned photographer of the polar regions. Ira’s work is featured on our website, and I hope to connect Ira to NSF when he returns from his current excursion to the South Pole.