ABSTRACT
In spite of an increasing awareness of the potential risk of copyright infringement as a result of multiple copying, college and university faculty members continue to use photocopies of journal articles and other published material for classroom teaching activities. In many courses there is a need for current and immediately updated information which may only be supplied by photocopying of recently published material. This photocopying, as a general rule, does not supplant the market for professional journals nor does it cause any realistic financial harm to publishers. However, much of the copying that is done for classroom use exceeds the minimum standards for fair use set forth in The Agreement on Guidelines for Classroom Copying in Not-For Profit Educational Institutes. 1 Although these guidelines purport to be the minimum standards of fair use, apparently publishers and some courts are looking to these guidelines to determine whether a particular use is fair use. 2 This potential conflict between the law and the needs of college and university faculty members places the serials librarian in a very difficult position. Quite often, multiple copies of journal articles are requested to be placed on reserve for classroom use or multiple copies may be requested through inter-library loan. This article will attempt to address these concerns and suggest an alternative for a more appropriate way of dealing with these copying issues.
