On May 4, 2012, the Board of Directors of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) voted enthusiastically to endorse the Visual Resources Association's (VRA) Statement on the Fair Use of Images for Teaching, Research, and Study. The VRA Statement is a clear and concise statement of best practices around a medium that can seem especially intimidating for educational users. It is a reliable guide, written by professionals who work with images every day and vetted by well-known experts in the field of copyright. ARL believes the VRA recommendations will help libraries better serve their educational mission by helping to inform library practices and policies with the values of educators, scholars, and students. The ARL Board also notes that the practices described in the VRA statement are fully consistent with the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries, released by ARL earlier this year.
The VRA Statement is available at: http://www.vraweb.org/organization/pdf/VRAFairUseGuidelinesFinal.pdf.
The ARL Code and supporting materials are available at: http://www.arl.org/fairuse.
About The Association of Research Libraries
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 126 research libraries in the US and Canada. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, facilitating the emergence of new roles for research libraries, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the web at http://www.arl.org/.
