Copyright and Digital Collections: A Data-Driven Roadmap for Rights Statement Success

An earlier version of this manuscript was presented by the authors at the biennial conference of the Association of College and Research Libraries, April 13, 2019. The authors wish to acknowledge the Research and Publication Committee of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, which provided support for the completion of this research. We would also like to thank Janet Swatscheno, the Digital Publishing Librarian at the University of Illinois Chicago, for her helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. This article summarizes the results of interviews with Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) service hub participants to determine whether and how standardized rights metadata is included in their digital collections. Providing accurate standardized rights metadata is crucial to communicating with patrons regarding how they can use objects in digital collections. Results from the interviews reveal key findings on effective rights statement implementation techniques as well as common tools used by librarians when applying rights statements to digital collections.