Symposium challenges copyright law exceptions for archives

Archives are our cultural and scientific memory. For example, the Wellcome Library's Codebreakers website explores the race to crack our genetic code, and showcases the real lives of the scientists involved. The Library aims to have 30 million images online by 2020, to encourage new areas of research and bring the biomedical sciences closer to a curious public. Proposed legislative changes to exceptions in copyright law for archives and libraries are provoking concern within the cultural heritage sector, a sector that includes world-renowned archives, libraries and museums, including the National Archives, the British Museum and the Wellcome Library. Without utilising the copyright exceptions under legislative review, the Wellcome Library have adopted a risk-managed approach to copyright compliance, and made over two million images of archive and library material available online in a landmark digitisation project. CREATe is organising a symposium to examine and promote the use of risk-management strategies by cultural heritage institutions, a sector which has historically been risk-averse when utilising copyright law exceptions. The event will be held at the Wellcome Trust, London on Friday 27th September 2013.