Foundations of Information Law

Learning the basic concepts of information law and the many legal concepts that come into play in the field of librarianship can seem like an overwhelming endeavor. Drawing upon the authors' unique backgrounds in both law and librarianship, this text is designed to empower readers to understand, rather than be intimidated by, the law. It melds essential context, salient examples of best practices, and stimulating discussions to illuminate numerous key legal and social issues directly related to the information professions. Helping readers better understand the role of law in their work, this primer

• discusses information law as part of a continuum of interrelated issues rather than an assortment of discrete topics;
• examines information law in the context of different types of libraries;
• delves into the manifold legal issues raised when interacting with patrons and communities, from intellectual freedom topics like censorship and public activities in the library to the legal issues surrounding materials and information access;
• elucidates operational and management legal issues, including library security, interacting with law enforcement, advocacy, lobbying, funding, human resources, and liability;
• promotes literacy of the law, its structures, and its terminology as a professional skill;
• gives readers the tools to find and understand different sources of legal authority and demonstrates how to interpret them when they conflict; and
• explores information law as a national and cross-national issue.

Author: Paul T. Jaeger, Jonathan Lazar, Ursula Gorham
Publisher: ALA Neal-Schuman
Published: 09/08/2023
Pages: 216
Binding Type: Paperback
Size: 10.00h x 7.00w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9780838947975

About the Author
Paul T. Jaeger, PhD, JD, MEd, MLS, is a Professor in the College of Information Studies and Co-Director of the Museum Scholarship and Material Culture certificate program at the University of Maryland. He studies the impacts of law and policy on information access and behavior. He is the author of more than 200 journal articles and book chapters, and this is his 20th book, which seems like it should earn him a free sandwich or something. His research has been funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the American Library Association, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Science Foundation, among others. He is an Editor of Library Quarterly and an Executive Editor of Including Disability. He is the founder of the annual Conference on Inclusion and Diversity in Library and Information Science (CIDLIS) and co-founder of the Disability Summit. He has also previously served as an editor for Advances in Librarianship, Government Information Quarterly, the International Journal of Information, Diversity, and Inclusion, and the Information Policy Book Series from MIT Press, but not at the same time. In 2014, he received the Library Journal/ALISE Excellence in Teaching Award. A 2019 study published in Public Library Quarterly named him one of the two most influential scholars of public library research in the past 35 years (it was a tie) and a 2020 study published in Library Quarterly found his publications to have the highest prestige value in the field.

Jonathan Lazar, PhD, LLM

is a professor in the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland. Dr. Lazar joined the University of Maryland in 2019, after 19 years as a professor of computer and information sciences at Towson University, where he served as director of the information systems program for 14 years.

Dr. Lazar has authored or edited 16 books, including Research Methods in Human-Computer Interaction (2nd edition, co-authored with Heidi Feng and Harry Hochheiser); Ensuring Digital Accessibility Through Process and Policy (co-authored with Dan Goldstein and Anne Taylor); Disability, Human Rights, and Information Technology (co-edited with Michael Stein); Accessible Technology and the Developing World (co-edited with Michael Stein); Universal Usability: Designing Computer Interfaces for Diverse User Populations; and Web Usability: A User-Centered Design Approach. He has published over 150 refereed articles in journals, conference proceedings, edited books, and magazines, and has been granted two US patents for his work on accessible web-based security features for blind users.

Dr. Lazar frequently serves as an adviser to government agencies and regularly provides testimony at federal and state levels, and multiple US federal regulations cite his research publications. He has been on the Executive Board of the Friends of the Maryland Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (now called the Library for the Blind and Print Disabled) since 2009, has served as the co-chair of the Cambridge University Workshop on Universal Access and Assistive Technology (CWUAAT) since 2012, has been on the program committee of the ACM Conference on Accessible Computing (ASSETS) most years since 2006, and served on the executive committee from ACM SIGCHI from 2010-2015. Dr. Lazar was the general chair of the ASSETS 2021 conference. Dr. Lazar is the director of the Trace Center and is a faculty member in the Human-Computer Interaction Lab.

Ursula Gorham, PhD, JD, MLS, MPM, is a Senior Lecturer in the College of Information Studies (the iSchool) at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the current Director of the Master of Library and Information Science program in the iSchool since Fall 2018 and a member of the American Library Association's Policy Corp. She is admitted to practice law in Maryland and previously served as a law clerk in Maryland appellate and federal bankruptcy courts. Dr. Gorham's research spans the role of libraries in public policy and political processes; access to legal information and court documents; and, collaborative efforts among libraries, community organizations, and government agencies to meet the information needs of underserved populations. Her research has been published in Law Library Journal, Government Information Quarterly, Public Library Quarterly, Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, Journal of Open Access to Law, Information Polity, and First Monday. She is the author of Access to information, technology, and justice: A critical intersection (2017), as well as the co-author of Public libraries, public policies, and political processes: Serving and transforming communities in times of economic and political Constraint (2014) and Libraries, human rights, and social justice: Enabling access and promoting inclusion (2015).

Natalie Greene Taylor, PhD, MLIS is an Associate Professor at the University of South Florida's School of Information and serves as the Program Coordinator for the Masters of Library and Information Science. Her research focuses on the intersections of information access, information literacy, and information policy. Dr. Taylor serves as an Editor of Library Quarterly and has published articles in School Library Research, Journal of Information Science, Computers & Education, and Journal of Documentation, among others. She has co-authored five books, including Foundations of Information Literacy; Foundations of Information Policy; Digital Literacy and Digital Inclusion: Information Policy and the Public Library; and Libraries, Human Rights and Social Justice: Enabling Access and Promoting Inclusion. She has edited two books, Libraries and the Global Retreat of Democracy and Perspectives on Libraries as Institutions of Human Rights and Social Justice.


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