Viva, CDL! Thanks, BLC

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Marc Hoffeditz of Boston Library Consortium (BLC) has shared very interesting news: the BLC “is pleased to announce the release of a new report, ReShare CDL: Software & Workflows for Consortial CDL for ILL. This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (LG-254935-OLS-23) and the Davis Educational Foundation. The report provides an overview of BLC and Project ReShare’s engagement with CDL for ILL to date.”

Despite the recent legal setback for the Internet Archive in what is arguably a flawed ruling, librarians continue to explore Controlled Digital Lending of materials.

The report introduces a system for scalably sharing interlibrary loan books through CDL:

“Instead of showing the market’s ability to rise to challenges and build solutions to meet emerging needs, CDL reveals that the market largely lacks this capability, especially when it comes to developing technology solutions attainable for most libraries.” Excerpted from an article in The Scholarly Kitchen, this bold statement articulated the position in which many libraries and consortia found themselves when searching for a plausible and scalable solution to support the practice of controlled digital lending (CDL). Seizing on this gap in the technology landscape, Boston Library Consortium (BLC) and Index Data laid the groundwork for the development and eventual release of ReShare CDL, a modern solution to facilitate and broker consortial CDL workflows and realize what the existing marketplace failed to do. While BLC has deferred implementation in the immediate future, we were compelled to share this report for others to learn about CDL and make informed decisions about potential adoptions. Capturing the great amount of work and information amassed over the past several years, this report details:

  • A brief history of BLC’s engagement with CDL to date

  • An introduction to the ReShare CDL interface and functionality

  • Adaptable workflows to execute consortial CDL requests

  • Future development directions for ReShare CDL, Project ReShare, and BLC”

The report is careful to say that it intended for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice about CDL. Still, the prospect of “a collaborative initiative designed to create an open, community-owned and governed resource sharing platform for libraries” is intriguing. Some publishers seem to think that any digital sharing can only be done via licensing. Many works aren’t and never will be digitized for licensing, including nearly all titles published before about 1990. Under those conditions, libraries will be unable to do some of their most important work—the preservation and sharing of the cultural record—without putting increasingly rare and fragile print copies at risk. Digital as has unbalanced copyright, giving too much to rights holders and too little attention to the need to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” We in libraries must continue to advocate for change. A system for sharing via CDL is an important step towards a better future for researchers and readers.