2024 Library Futures Research Network Award

What if digital library lending wasn’t just a right covered by a narrow section of copyright law and restrictive licensing agreements? What if, instead, we could expand digital lending rights into the areas of free speech, disability rights, state sovereignty, and more?

This publication, Know Your Rights: Radical Digital Lending for Libraries, produced by Amanda Levendowski, Becky Chambers, and the Intellectual Property and Information Policy (iPIP) Clinic, aims to answer these questions. The zine expands our understanding of what copyright law entails and introduces novel ways to think about library lending and civil rights. The zine identifies red flags and offers suggestions for contract language that protects the rights of your patrons from contract preemption. To download the print format of this zine, visit our website.

Funding for this project was provided by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation. Library Futures is proud to support the work of our community and to amplify the voices of those doing crucial work on equitable access in the digital age. We are grateful to the members of our inaugural research network for being a part of it.

About the Grantee

Amanda Levendowski is a Professor of Law and the Founding Director of the Intellectual Property and Information Policy (iPIP, pronounced eye-pip) Clinic, which produces creative legal and sociotechnical work for justice-minded artists, nonprofits, and coalitions.