LibTPM: Technological Protection Measures and Research Libraries

Overview

This site provides information about a research project that investigates the use of technological protection measures (TPM), or digital rights management systems, by academic and research libraries in the United States. The website will also provide links to current information on TPM use in libraries, museums and archives worldwide.

Research Goals

• The first goal of the study is to investigate how digital collections in academic libraries are making use of TPM and to develop best practices to assist digital collections developers in learning about and appying TPM.
• A second goal of the study is to investigate to what extent vendors of licensed scholarly resources are making use of TPM to control access to or use of their works by authorized users of universities.
• A third goal of the study is to investigate how TPM access and use restrictions interact with teaching, learning and scholarship.
• Along the way, the study team will find and index information from around the world about TPM relevant to libraries, archives and museums.

Study Schedule

• 2006/2007: Focus on goal 1 - how are academic library digital collections making use of TPM? What are best practices for TPM use for digital collections?
• 2007/2008: Focus on goal 2 - how are academic publishers making use of TPM to control access and use of products by authorized academic users?
• 2008/2009: Focus on goal 3 - how do TPM interact with teaching, learning and scholarship?

Study Outputs

• Eschenfelder, K.R. (2007) dLIST eprint 1803 Every Library's Nightmare? Digital Rights Management and Licensed Scholarly Digital Resources
  
  This study explored what technological protection measures (TPM) publishers/vendors of licensed scholarly resources employ by assessing the use restrictions experienced in a sample of resources from history/art history, engineering and health sciences. The analysis develops a framework of use restrictions that distinguishes between soft TPM - which discourage use - and hard TPM - which strictly limit or forbid uses. Within soft TPM, the framework identifies six use discouraging TPM: extent of use, obfuscation, omission, amalgamation, frustration and threat. The study concludes that these soft TPM are common in licensed scholarly resources. Further, while hard TPM are less common, they are not unknown.


• Eschenfelder, K.R.; Benton, I. (2006) dLIST eprint x Licensed Resource Use Restriction Assessment Data Collection Form
  
  Data collection form used for dLIST Preprint 1803: Every Library's Nightmare? Digital Rights Management and Licensed Scholarly Digital Resources.


• Eschenfelder, K.R. (2006) dLIST eprint 1518 Digital Rights Management and Licensed Scholarly Digital Resources: A Report for ACRL.
  
  This report summarizes the results of an ACRL Samuel Lazerow Fellowship funded research project to investigate the extent to which publishers and vendors are making use of technological protection measures ("TPM" also known as DRM) to control access to and use of licensed full-text scholarly materials or data sets. The study also began to explore the impact of access and use restrictions on learning, scholarship and library management.


• Eschenfelder, Kristin R.; Benton, I. (2006) dLIST eprint 1155 An Assessment of Access and Use Rights for Licensed Scholarly Digital Resources (JCDL 2006 Poster)
  
  This poster reports the initial results of a study investigating how technological proctection measures (TPM), or digital rights management systems, are used on licensed full-text digital scholarly resources from history, health sciences and engineering.

List of Major Publications

• (in progress) Digital Cultural Collections in an Age of Reuse and Remixes. Eschenfelder, K.R.; Caswell, M.
• (in progress) "A Tale of Three DRM: the Co-construction of access and use rights for licensed digital resources" Eschenfelder, K.R.; Walden, B.
• (2010, Jan) "Technologies Employed to Control Access to or Use of Digital Cultural Collections: Controlled Online Collections" D-Lib Magazine, Volume 16, Number 1/2. Eschenfelder, K.R. & Agnew, G.
• (2009) Controlling Access to and Use of Online Cultural Collections: A Survey of U.S. Archives, Libraries and Museums. A report for the Institute of Museum and Library Services. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• (2008) "Every Library's Nightmare? Digital Rights Management and Licensed Scholarly Digital Resources." College and Research Libraries 69(3) Eschenfelder, K.R.