Update: Sunday, April 26, 1;38 p.m.: The issue has been resolved. Thank you for your patience.
To access Brightspace today, go to dal.ca/Brightspace or go through my.dal.ca. Access through dal.brightspace.com is not working. We are working on fixing this. Thank you for your patience.
April 23 is World Book and Copyright Day!
This is a day to celebrate books for their role in creating inclusive and knowledge-rich societies, and to reflect on the publishing world from multiple angles: “books as vectors of values and knowledge, and depositories of the intangible heritage; books as windows onto the diversity of cultures and as tools for dialogue; books as sources of material wealth and copyright-protected works of creative artists” (World Book and Copyright Day website).
It’s important for all students, staff, and faculty to have some familiarity with copyright, especially Dalhousie’s Fair Dealing Guidelines. Copyright encompasses restrictions on how creative works can be used, but also important exceptions that benefit education, research, and study. Copyright applies not only to the use of other works, but your own creations. Whether you’re creating a video, or writing a thesis, copyright will be a defining component of the final product. You can find out more about copyright restrictions and exceptions on Dalhousie’s Copyright Office website, or e-mail copyright.office@dal.ca
Due to new measures announced by the Nova Scotia government restricting groups of people to no more than five at a time, the Kellogg Library Learning Commons (CHEB) is now CLOSED. All other Dalhousie Libraries locations remain closed.
We will loan laptops to students without alternative access to computers. Contact library@dal.ca or (902)494-4089. Students on the Agricultural Campus who need a laptop can contact MacRae.library@dal.ca or (902)956-2708.
Visit libraries.dal.ca to access LiveHelp (via chat) eBooks, eJournals, databases, and more. For HelpDesk and remote learning and teaching support, contact support@dal.ca
Starting Wednesday, all Dal Libraries locations will be closed for three weeks, with the exception of the CHEB Learning Commons.
Today (Tuesday), all of our libraries will be moving to reduced hours, closing at 5 p.m. and reopening at 9 a.m. tomorrow (Tuesday) morning
Going forward, the Kellogg Library Learning Commons in the CHEB will be open from 7:30 a.m.–4 p.m., Monday–Friday, to provide access to computers and internet-based scholarly resources for students. We recognize that not every student has a computer or internet access.
Starting Wednesday, all Dal Libraries locations will be closed for three weeks, with the exception of the CHEB Learning Commons.
For today and Tuesday, all of our libraries will be moving to reduced hours, from 9 a.m.–5 p.m. each day.
The health and wellness of the staff and users of the Dal Libraries is our top priority. The difficult decision to close is based on advice from the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, Dr. Theresa Tam, who has said that our opportunity to “flatten the curve” is now.
From Wednesday, March 18th onward, the CHEB will be open from 7:30 a.m.–4 p.m., Monday–Friday, to provide access to computers and internet-based scholarly resources for students. We recognize that not every student has a computer or internet access.
We will increase our capacity to engage students and faculty members virtually and encourage our users to switch to online/remote services as much as possible to minimize the need to come on campus. We will continue to offer our full array of online services during the closure, including research and reference assistance through LiveHelp, and extensive support for Temporary Remote Teaching through Brightspace. We know these services are critical to many of you and we will do all that we can to serve our users as best we can while most of our Dal Libraries locations are closed.
Over the coming weeks, the Dal Libraries will be assessing the situation and we will communicate our plans for going forward after that. To stay up-to-date with news from the Dal Libraries during the closure, please continue to visit this page.
Thank you for your patience as we do our part to stop the spread of COVID-19. Please send questions or comments to library@dal.ca and we’ll reply as soon as we can. Please note that most staff are currently adjusting to working from home, so a response may be delayed during this initial period of transition.
The Dalhousie Libraries are closing Monday, March 16 at 5 p.m. and will reopen from 9 a.m.–5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 17.
This reduction in hours is due to precautions we are taking as a result of the COVID-19 virus.
More information about our hours will be forthcoming. Thank you for understanding.
Night Owls at the MacRae, Killam, and Kellogg Libraries has been CANCELLED for this term to reduce the cleaning workload on custodial staff, who are focusing their efforts on extensive cleaning related to COVID-19.
Please consult the hours widget on libraries.dal.ca to stay up-to-date with our hours.
We are pleased to announce that Jason Flynn is our new Manager of Academic Technology Operations for the Dalhousie Libraries. This position reports to the Director of Academic Technology Services.
Jason has worked at Dalhousie for the past 11 years, spending five of those years as a Systems Administrator for the Dalhousie Libraries in the Academic Technology Services unit. He has also worked as a Senior Storage & Systems Technologist for Information Technology Services at Dal. He has led two virtualization initiatives and was on the Dalhousie Research Data Management Planning Committee and was a member of the national Dataverse North Working Group.
Jason holds a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Information Technology from Mount Saint Vincent University. He will be responsible for overseeing the Libraries’ technical infrastructure, providing management and leadership to the operations team (system administrators, developers, and statistical computing), implementing technology-enabled learning projects, and maintaining the academic software life cycle.
This is the fifth and final part in our series of blog posts celebrating Fair Dealing Week 2020 (February 24 to February 28, 2020).
Fair dealing is only one exception from the Copyright Act, but it receives a lot of attention. There are numerous other exceptions and resources that overlap and supplement fair dealing allowances in an educational setting.
One exception is Section 30.04(1) of the Copyright Act that provides for an exception from copyright infringement for copying, communicating and performing in public by an educational institution or a person acting under its authority for educational or training purposes of a copyright protected work that is available through the Internet. However, this use is subject to several important restrictions. To find out more about the educational exception for works available through the Internet, visit our websites: https://libraries.dal.ca/services/copyright-office/for-faculty/using-materials-from-the-internet.html
Under Section 29.5 of the Copyright Act, films may be shown by faculty, staff to students, without permission of or compensation to copyright owners, provided the screening takes place on the premises of an educational institution, the recording is a legally acquired copy, used in pursuit of education to an audience consisting mainly of students with no admission being charged. There is no longer the need to ensure a public performance license is in place if these conditions are met. Works may be performed live (such as a play) without permission under these conditions as well. For more information on showing films in a classroom setting, please visit the following section of the Copyright Office website: https://libraries.dal.ca/services/copyright-office/for-faculty/showing-films-on-campus.html
These exceptions and others are explained in detail on the Copyright Office website. Please note that all of these exceptions are subject to specific restrictions and guidelines. When in doubt, contact the Copyright Office with any questions or comments at copyright.office@dal.ca
This is part four in a five-part series of blog posts celebrating Fair Dealing Week 2020 (February 24 to February 28, 2020).
The copyright landscape in Canada has undergone significant changes recently. To ensure a fair and reasonable approach to the use of copyright protected materials on campus, Dalhousie has sought to balance the rights of users with those of creators. To help accomplish this, the University established a Copyright Office and adopted updated Fair Dealing Guidelines.
As students of Dalhousie University, you may copy materials for which the university (e.g. the Library) has negotiated licenses, according to the terms of the individual license agreements. In addition to license agreements, fair dealing allows you to make use of a work for yourself for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, news reporting, education, parody or satire. As an example, this means you can copy one article from a journal, or one chapter from a book for the purpose of your studies and research.
Without fair dealing, any time you wished to make use of a copyrighted work in your course, you would need permission from the copyright holder, perhaps even paying a licensing fee. This short presentation illustrates uses that we might take for granted and would not be legal without fair dealing.
For more information on how fair dealing affects Students, please take some time to read about Fair Dealing for Students, and consult our Fair Dealing Guidelines. Please feel free to contact the Copyright Office with any questions or comments at copyright.office@dal.ca