Lately, as I’ve been considering my transcription blogs, I’ve been thinking of how to handle copyrighted material. I am a librarian after all and I must adhere to copyright! For the Roanoke Beacon and the Nashville Globe, I am currently okay. The content I’ve posted is public domain as far as I can ascertain from reading the copyright regs at the Library of Congress website.
However, I still want to work though copyrighted material, so for that, I’ve decided to go ahead and create an index, a very simple index. Though I created my own index for my first iteration transcription for the Roanoke Beacon Blog, I found my data entry process too tedious to maintain. This weekend, I found an online service that lets me create an online database for free and I am this time keeping my input EXTREMELY simple. The database is technically not “normalized” but I think it will serve its’ purpose. So, I’m rather excited. I can do it quickly too. More developments to come later…
Copyright
If you transcribe something that is copywritten, but you use quotes and attribute it to the author (or publisher, if no byline given), does this clear you? I’d be interested in transcribing some of articles from some old newspapers in my county, but I don’t want to run into any legal issues. –Cricket