 This was the most ambitious, the most challenging, and in many ways, I think among at least the most important in the whole series. And that's because this is a very large community that we're talking about, a very diverse community. Many different kinds of people work and practice in a research library setting. Many different kinds of collections are represented. Many different kinds of activities. Libraries both accumulate materials and are active in supporting the work of teachers and scholars in their institutions. Very, very complicated. And we knew that going in. And so we planned for an exceptionally detailed and exceptionally representative set of first-stage interviews and second-stage small group discussions. In the end, overall, over the course of the two years or so that it took us to get from the beginning to the code of best practices, we talked to over 150 librarians from upwards of 64 or 65 different institutions. And we had enough time and enough space, and thanks to the Mellon Foundation, enough money really to do it properly. Not only did we have funding for the initial inquiry and for the development of the best practices, but very wisely, I think. Mellon also was willing to fund a third year, and as it turned out, a bit more than a year during which we spent our time. You and I, in particular, on the road quite a lot together and separately, going to introduce the final code, which had been devised of, by and for the library community. And then, as all these codes are, very carefully vetted by a bunch of tough-minded copyright lawyers to make sure that what the librarians thought their fair use rights were fell within the zone of reasonableness defined by existing law. After all of that, we had the luxury really of being able to go around the country and introduce this code and explain it and to talk with a lot of professionals in the library community about what they could do with it, about what value it might have to them. I think that's right, actually. What we found was that the library community is extraordinarily conscientious and takes very seriously its responsibilities, not only to the users that it serves in terms of making things available, but also to the creators whose contents they are ultimately the custodians of. I find that characterization really, really apt. You were closer to the library community when we began, so perhaps it wasn't as surprising to you, but it was really a revelation to me. And I think that the nature of the discussions, as you describe it, is really the source of the power, the robustness of the code and that a less grounded document, a document that reflected less fully or less completely, the views of the field would, by definition, also be less effective. Now, a question arises, effective in what way? Effective for whom? That's right. So it's really important to know that this is a rich document. There's so much in there. There's a wonderful preamble that describes the history of the fair use doctrine, how and why it has come to be what it is today as a powerful doctrine, and there are nuances, there are limitations and exceptions, most importantly, that color each of the principles that describe areas where fair use can and should operate for libraries. And there there is not only a code of best practices, PDF free to you to download, but there are infographics, there are other videos, there are reading lists, background materials, and so there's a host of things that you can look at to get a sense of just how rich this material is. The first area, which will surprise probably no one, is that fair use is there for libraries to use when they are helping teachers share library materials with students in the context of a course. E-Reserves is one context, but of course the principle is broadly drawn and it captures a consensus about all kinds of contexts where a professor might need or want to make library materials available to students. In order to understand how this document works, how librarians felt they wanted to express their fair use rights, it's really important to read the document because the document doesn't say, oh, anything you can do on E-Reserves is fine. The document says E-Reserves is an area to which, and course support generally, is an area to which fair use can apply but subject to a variety of conditions and limitations, and that's true of each of the, I guess it's eight categories overall. There's a basic principle stating the potential applicability of fair use and there is qualifying detail, and the qualifying detail is as much a part of the document as much a part of this code of best practices as the broad statements of principle themselves. There's a principle about making items accessible, and here again, this is a wonderful area where it's not so much, you know, can we keep on doing something we've been doing, but actually there's space now with technology for a radical improvement in the cultural missions of libraries and the ways that they serve everyone that they're supposed to serve, and so where before there was what's known as a book famine, for example, for folks who are print disabled for any number of reasons, you know, the books in the library just might as well not exist from their point of view. Now the technology exists so that libraries can serve their mission, they can meet their legal obligations, frankly, to serve these folks on equitable terms by format shifting materials to meet demands for accessible copies. And I should say that as someone who spent a good deal of time working with sometimes representing the blind and the print disabled in these copyright areas, it was enormously gratifying to me to see how strongly and emphatically the library community came together around that particular principle. We surfaced this as a concern in the first stage of the process when we talked to a lot of library opinion leaders about what problems with copyright were actually currently standing in the way of their fulfillment of mission and there was some discussion of accessibility and there was enough discussion of it so that we identified it as a topic that we wanted to focus on in these small group meetings that followed in order to see whether there might in fact be a consensus, a working consensus around the application of fair use to the problem of making it possible for more different people to use library resources. And I think it was that head slapping moment. I think that in those small group meetings people saw this immediately as a matter of importance. I think it's crucial to reiterate this idea that these are the best practices, right? Not the most common. This was not a survey. We're not taking an average. We're not looking for the lowest common denominator. This was a process of surfacing the best. And so that's what happened here. Another really interesting area that came up as a place where fair use could and should operate and where again there was a bit of a social justice angle or a sense that gosh we're under serving people was in the context of institutional repositories and so there was a whole, there's a principle here that talks about the idea that libraries ought to really strongly advocate on behalf of the students and the professors who must often as a requirement of their employment or as a requirement of obtaining a degree who must submit their scholarship to these repositories, right? And so if we are going to, as an institution, as a library say, in order to advance you must interact with this functionality, this repository. Well then, by gosh, the way that thing works had better be consistent with our values in fair use. And what we heard in the first stage was it was quite the opposite at some institutions. There were places where the repository policies were, you know, there's no such thing as fair use. You've got to get permission for everything. And there is literally, there were literally graduate students and even professors who were in abandoning research projects because they could foresee. And there were art history dissertations being deposited in institutional repositories without illustrations. Right, right, these sort of black holes, right? Exactly. And then of what use is this document and why is it even in the repository if to read it is not to understand it? It seemed as though the idea that institutions of higher learning should be involved in harvesting and preserving web-based materials at least in areas in which their institutions had some special interest, you know, Latin American websites or human rights websites or whatever the case may be, that seemed very, very straightforward to me. And yet when we talked to the community, we learned that although it was an accepted practice at some institutions, it was something that in other places was being foregone. And the reasons for that, as for the reason, as was true of the reasons that we heard why other kinds of activities that seemed very mission critical weren't taking place was complex. On the one hand, it was that there was genuine uncertainty within the library community about the application of the legal principle to this specific case. And one of the things we hope a document like this does is to provide a somewhat higher level of certainty and confidence for librarians themselves. We believed going into this project that one of the audiences for the final document would be gatekeepers within institutions of higher education. And certainly you and I have spent a lot of time since then introducing the document on different campuses and encouraging the librarians on those campuses to use it to begin discussions with their gatekeepers. As you say, Peter, the gatekeepers on our campuses are generally, you know, they're nice folks, they're trying to do the right thing, and the reasons why they say no are never out of ill will, right? And rarely even frankly out of being misinformed so much as being uncertain and wanting to be safe, right? A very reasonable mission-centered approach to protecting the institution from unnecessary risk. And so in these conversations they have absolutely loved to hear from us that the risk is not so bad. In fact, it's quite reasonable and that the library community writ large stands behind these reasonable applications of fair use. So this turns out, I think, to be a powerful document for use with gatekeepers. And I'm internal gatekeepers. Gatekeepers within the institution who are, after all, the ones you really have to worry about. That's right. Fair use, right? Fair use exists for exactly this purpose. And when we spoke with people, we heard loud and clear, yes, this is the right thing to do. It's not going to hurt our video friends, it's not going to hurt our director friends, and it will do a great service to our teachers and our students, and we should do it, and now they're doing it. If you are watching and you have a story about the success of the code in your institution on your campus, please let us know and we'll be sure to make sure that the rest of the world knows too. However, it's also important to say that our role and the role of ARL as a centralizing institution and the role of ALA is an important cosponsor of this effort and the role of the Mellon Foundation as a generous funder of it all are coming to an end. And the code remains, the supporting material remains, and the question is, Brandon, what is going to happen to this material? That's right, and the answer to that question has to come from the community, right? Just as the values that inform this document came from the community, just as even the specific limitations and exceptions, every word in this document is derived from our interactions with this community and now whether the document and how the document thrives or continues to thrive is really in the hands of the library community. It is to you now out there to take this document and breathe life into it, to make it a part of your policies, to make it a part of your policymaking process, to share it with your allies throughout campus, to publicize the successes that you're having as you apply this document. This thing will rise or fall now depending on what happens out there in the world. And I'm extremely optimistic because we've seen so many successes already because it's such a powerful document because everyone who cares about these issues has supported it and continues to support it. So there is a groundswell now of support for this document. It has a very strong foundation and it's for the library community at large to build on that foundation and continue to make this a living document. Thank you, Brandon. That was very, very well put.