THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

A periodic report from

THE NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM

APRIL 1996 • NO. 7

U.S. Copyright Office initiates first phase

of conversion to electronic copyright registration

Library of Congress milestone

U.S.

COPYRIGHT

OFFICE

The U.S. Copyright Office on Feb. 27 reached a

major milestone when it received its first digital application and deposit using its CORDS

(Copyright Office Electronic Registration, Recordation and Deposit) system.

That day, the initiation of Phase 1, was made possible

after three years of intensive analysis, design, development and internal testing. CORDS is a multiphase,

multiyear project to develop and implement a totally

electronic system for receipt and processing of copyright

applications, deposited works, related documents and

rights management information transmitted in digital

form over international communications

networks such as the Internet.

First submission

The first digital deposit was an unpublished dissertation in the field of computer

science titled “Signature and Specification

Matching,” filed by its author, Amy

Moormann Zaremski, a Ph.D. candidate at CarnegieMellon University in Pittsburgh. Copyright Office staff

were on site at both the origin of the first submission

(the Computer Science Department of Carnegie-Mellon

University) and the destination (the Copyright Office)

during the first transmission. Initiating the testbed, Ms.

Zaremski filled out an application using a specially developed on-line interview form, attached a digital copy

of her dissertation, signed both digitally and transmitted them to the Copyright Office over the Internet. The

process was completed in a matter of minutes.

“Service to Congress and the nation will be improved,”

said Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters. “Works in

digital form and associated rights management information needed for required licensing and permissions will

be made available much more quickly than in the past.”

Members of the CORDS testbed implementation team

gathered at the Copyright Office end to receive and review the first CORDS transmissions. This team is composed of members of the CORDS Working Policy Committee and the CORDS Working Group on Operations,

as well as staff from the Copyright Automation Group,

the Library’s Information Technology Services (ITS) and

the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), the technical consultants

who are developing the system architecture

design and software.

The new system has been under development since 1993, as a joint project of the

U.S. Copyright Office and the Library of

Congress, working with CNRI. Developing

the testbed system with support from the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and the Library of Congress, CNRI is leading a national effort with the Copyright Office to develop an infrastructure for linking digital works in electronic libraries and other transactionbased systems. Four to six universities will cooperate in

Phase I of the initial CORDS testbed, which is limited to

copyright registration and deposit of unpublished technical reports.

continued on page 2; see CORDS
THE NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM

2 APRIL 1996

Applicants can “sign”

submissions electronically

CORDS will allow applicants to submit copyright applications and deposit their digitized

works electronically. Claimants will prepare

their applications using either a formatted or

an interview application process, and attach

deposit materials in machine-readable format,

“sign” their submissions using public key/private key encryption technology and send applications and deposits to the Copyright Office

over the Internet using Privacy Enhanced Mail.

The CORDS system interfaces with three

existing Copyright Office automated systems

—COINS (the Copyright Office in-process

tracking system), COPICS (Copyright Office

Publication and Interactive Catagloging System) and CIS (the Copyright Imaging System,

which produces copyright registration certificates). The new CORDS system automatically

enters information into COINS (the tracking

system), the remitter’s deposit account is debited for the application fee, and an in-process

tracking record (giving the status of the application, fee and deposit) is created, all electronically.

In addition, using CORDS, Copyright Office

staff will complete electronic copyright examination and cataloging of the digital applications

and works and enter data into COPICS (the

cataloging system). Copyright registration certificates will be issued through the Copyright

Imaging System (CIS). The Office’s digital repository will hold these digital copyright deposits in a secure and verifiable manner.

Days or weeks to certification

instead of months

The CORDS system thus enables the Copyright

Office to complete its review and processing

and issue a copyright registration certificate

within a few days or weeks, compared with a

few months under the current process.

The Copyright Office began the testbed with

Carnegie-Mellon and will extend Phase 1 testing to include other universities over the next

few months. After receipt of the first digitized

applications and deposits, the CORDS team is

analyzing the experience of this first external

transmission and is making necessary adjustments and modifications to the software.

Because of the pioneering system architecture, advanced technology and policy implications involved in developing this totally electronic registration and deposit system, the initial implementation is limited to a series of carefully constructed test phases while the Office

continues to improve the system for national

usage.

Essential features to be developed and tested

in the next few years include “volume

scalability” (so that the system can handle an

increasing volume of transactions), “platform

scalability” (so that the system can be mounted

on a variety of small and large devices), protection of multiple data types (including text,

images, video, audio and software/executable

programs), support for multiple payment

mechanisms (including deposit accounts, credit

cards, digital cash, etc.), secure storage and retrieval of content in digital repositories (so that

the content is stored and retrieved only by intended recipients while maintaining confidentiality and integrity of the works) and development of the handle management system.

CORDS, from page 1

Subsequent test

phases will

include work

with graphics,

images, sound

recordings,

videos, and

other formats.

continued on the next page
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

APRIL 1996 3

What’s your handle? In future test phases over the next few years,

the Copyright Office will seek the cooperation

of several small groups of representative copyright owners. Subsequent phases of CORDS

testing will receive and process selected applications and deposits in other formats of copyrighted works starting with a limited number

of published textual works, then text with

graphics, images, sound recordings, video, and

other formats. These test and modification

phases will continue while the Internet environment itself is maturing. Expansion of the

bandwidth and increased speed of transmitting

continued on page 4 HOW IT

WORKS ▲

Key to implementing the secure digital repositories for the Office and the Library of Congress

is the handle management system through

which each digitized work deposited with the

Copyright Office will receive a unique digital

identifier called a “handle.” The proposed

handle management system is being tested as

a possible national standard to be used to locate individual digital objects and their associated rights and permissions information in digital repositories throughout the country.
THE NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM

4 APRIL 1996

CORDS, continued from page 3 lications in digital form for its growing National

Digital Library Program,” she added. As ‘the

electronic library of the future,’ the Library’s

National Digital Library collections will include

a wide variety of materials in digital form, including both older works converted from the

Library’s historic collections for educational

purposes as well as new titles received in digital form via copyright.

“The collections of the Library of Congress

belong to the American people,” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. “We have

a responsibility to make the enormous riches

of this institution as accessible as possible to as

many people as possible.”

Thus digitized copyright deposits received

through CORDS will form the nucleus of new

electronic works in the Library’s collections for

the benefit of its users, who will all be enriched

through authorized access to these new digitized copyrighted materials.

 —Mary Berghaus Levering

 Associate Register

for National Copyright Programs

 U.S. Copyright Office

 levering@mail.loc.gov

huge numbers of large data files simultaneously

are Internet features essential to efficient future

CORDS functioning.

Also essential to CORDS is the establishment

of the Library’s secure digital repository and

its related policies necessary to store, retrieve

and use the copyrighted materials in accordance

with the terms and conditions of access and use

established by law and the copyright owners.

At a hearing of the House of Representatives

Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations on March 5, Ms. Peters testified that

“this electronic system is an essential investment in the future; it is critical to the protection

of copyrighted content on the Information Superhighway. ... I can’t stress too strongly how

critical this system is — not only to the Copyright Office but to the future of the Library of

Congress.”

“Once fully implemented over the next few

years, the CORDS system will aid both the

Copyright Office and copyright owners by providing an efficient new registration and recordation mechanism,” said Associate Register for

National Copyright Programs Mary Levering,

who has coordinated the development of

CORDS for the Copyright Office and the Library. “It will also provide an effective source

for the Library of Congress to acquire new pub-
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

APRIL 1996 5

On March 5 the Library upped by five—

to 13— the number of digitized collections it makes accessible to people everywhere over its World Wide Web site. This

rich assemblage of Americana reveals history

and culture through photographs, pamphlets,

motion pictures, broadsides, books and manuscripts from the archives of the Library.

Teachers, librarians, students and others now

have access to documents of the Continental

Congress, African American pamphlets on politics, slavery and civil rights, and publications

of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, among others. These are in addition

to the already available photographs of the Civil

War by Mathew Brady, photographs of Carl Van

Vechten and selected notebooks by Walt

Whitman. A video collection offers short films

from the turn of the century, and an audio collection features political speeches by American

leaders, 1918-1920.

These so-called primary sources are available

not just to researchers who can make the trip to

Washington, but to everyone with access to the

rapidly expanding World Wide Web. Now, K12 students can use these resources in their

studies, and the Library is able to reach this new

constituency through the wonders of electronics.

“Our experience shows that such primary

sources stir youngsters to ask more questions

and make greater use of books,” said Librarian

of Congress James H. Billington.

The following collections are new on the

World Wide Web from the Library at

http://www.loc.gov/

African American Pamphlets from the Daniel

A. P. Murray Collection, 1820-1920

Source: Rare Book and Special Collections

Division, Library of Congress. 351 pamphlets

(11,000 pages)

The Daniel A.P. Murray Pamphlet Collection

presents a panoramic review of African American history and culture, spanning almost 100

Web collection of

Americana continues to

grow

continued on page 7

years. The entire collection ranges from the

early 19th century through the early 20th century, but most of the pamphlets come from the

years 1875 to 1900. Among the notable authors

represented are Frederick Douglass, Booker T.

Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W.

Arnett, Alexander Crummel and Emanuel

Love.

Daguerreotype Photographs, 1842-1862

Source: Prints and Photographs Division.

Ca. 600 photographs

Dating back to the beginnings of photography, these photographs include images of

Washington, D.C., as well as portraits of famous

Americans from the first half of the 19th century. Included are images of Presidents Jackson, Polk, Pierce, Taylor and Buchanan, noted

statesmen Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and

Daniel Webster, and creative figures such as

Washington Irving, Edwin Booth, Jenny Lind

and Dolley Madison, as well as the earliest

known photograph of the U.S. Capitol.

Documents of the Continental Congress and

Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789

Source: Rare Book and Special Collections

Division, Library of Congress. 274 broadsides

The Continental Congress Broadside Collection contains 253 items that document the work

of Congress during this critical period of American history. The Constitutional Convention

Broadside Collection (21 titles) carries the story

forward to the period of the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. Items include extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions,

proclamations, committee reports and treaties.

Broadsides range in length from one to 28

pages.

COME TO

WASHINGTON

VIA THE WEB

Priceless art and

documents from

our history are

now within the

reach of people

everywhere.
THE NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM

6 APRIL 1996

Following is a brief analysis of possible effects of the Telecommunications Act of 1996,

which was signed into law by President

Clinton in the Library’s Main Reading Room

(see issue No. 5) on Feb. 8.

The melding of telecommunications,

video and computers is having an impact on telecommunications industry

structure, as traditional telecommunications

providers such as telephone and cable television companies expand their capabilities to become more generic multifaceted “information

providers.” Digital technologies make it possible to distribute voice, data, and video on the

same communications channel. Combined

with new alternative telecommunications delivery systems, competition is developing in

many markets previously considered to be

monopolistic. Telecommunications market

structures are responding through cable industry consolidations, telephone/cable alliances,

wireless telecommunications mergers and a

variety of joint ventures.

The 104th Congress has passed legislation,

the Telecommunications Act of 1996, that will

result in the establishment of a new regulatory

framework to address this changing environment. This represents the first major rewrite

of our nation’s telecommunications policy

since the passage of the 1934 Communications

Act. Although there have been significant additions to the 1934 law over its 60-year history,

much of the underlying framework has remained untouched.

The 1996 act redefines and recasts the 1934

Communications Act to address the relationship among the growing list of communications services, service providers and users. In

doing so, it establishes a single, comprehensive, blueprint for telecommunications policy

that addresses our changing telecommunications-information environment. The 1996 act attempts to develop a regulatory framework that

will capture the benefits of competition while

ensuring that the users and suppliers of a developing and diversified information industry

will be protected from exploitative practices

and abuse.

The general policy objective of the 1996 act

is to open up markets to competition by removing unnecessary regulatory barriers. Removal

of such barriers, supporters claim, will permit

competition to flourish and ultimately benefit

the public interest. Some of the long-term benefits most often cited include: increased consumer choice; decreased consumer prices; increased efficiency; technological advances; and

increased investment in our developing information infrastructure.

Also, as these markets transform and the

benefits of competition develop, it is assumed

that the need for government regulation and

oversight will diminish. Provisions also address

the redefinition of universal service objectives

to incorporate the growing needs of the information age and ensure that we do not develop

into a nation of information “haves” and “havenots.” Special considerations are also established to address the needs of schools, libraries

and rural health care providers.

Although the act passed by overwhelming

margins in both the House and Senate, the legislation is not without its detractors. Some

members of Congress expressed concerns that

the act is still too regulatory. They point to the

numerous rulemakings that the act requires as

well as the removal of earlier provisions such

as those removing foreign ownership restrictions on telecommunications common carriers

to support their claim.

The Telecommunications Act—

issues remain

see Telecommunications on the next page
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

APRIL 1996 7

Early colonists

were passionate

in their efforts

to establish the

principle of

unity. Now

digitized and

on the Web, this

woodcut by an

unknown artist

appeared in

The Pennsylvania Gazette

May 9, 1754.

JOIN, OR DIE

Perhaps of greater importance is the fact that

the act contains provisions that require new

regulations for the television and computer industries. In addition, some parties, such as the

American Civil Liberties Union, have denounced the act because of its provisions that

restrict the free flow of certain types of information over the Internet. Some major consumers groups have also opposed the legislation,

stating that it “does not do enough to stimulate

competition.”

The Clinton administration voiced support

for the measure and the president signed it into

law (P.L. 104-104.) Whether the act will live up

to its stated goals is yet to be determined. Much

of the activity is now focused at the Federal

Communications Commission, the federal

agency charged with interpreting and implementing numerous provisions. Action is also

taking place in the courts, where some provisions, particularly those addressing Internet

regulation, are being challenged by a broad

group of organizations, including the American

Library Association. (The U.S. District Court for

the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in a Feb.

15 action, issued a temporary restraining order

prohibiting the enforcement of these challenged

provisions.)

Finally, how the various players and consumers will react in the marketplace and how

conditions will evolve in individual markets is

still open to question.

 —Angele A. Gilroy

 Congressional Research Service

The NAWSA collection presents 162 books,

pamphlets and other artifacts documenting the

suffrage campaign. They are part of a larger

Library collection donated to LC in November

1938 by Carrie Chapman Catt, longtime president of the National American Woman Suffrage

Association. The collection includes works from

the libraries of other members and officers of

the organization. Among them are: Elizabeth

Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone,

Alice Stone Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Smith Miller, and Mary A. Livermore.

World’s Transportation Commission Photograph Collection, 1894-1896

Source: Prints and Photographs Division,

Library of Congress. Ca. 900 photographs

WWW, continued from page 5 modes of travel

that existed in

the 1890s, as

seen through

the lens of

American photographer WilTelecommunications, continued

The National American Woman Suffrage

Association (NAWSA) Collection, 1860-1920

Source: Rare Book and Special Collections

Division, Library of Congress. 167 items (ca.

10,000 pages)

The World’s Transportation Commission

Photograph Collection illustrates the many

liam Henry Jackson. But in addition to railroads,

elephants, camels, horses, sledges, sedan chairs,

rickshas and other types of transportation, Jackson photographed city views, street and harbor

scenes, landscapes and local inhabitants in

North Africa, Asia, Australia and Oceania.

The five new collections provide firsthand

evidence of how America lived, worked, and

viewed the world during the formative years

of our nation. We are happy to supply students,

researchers, and citizens everywhere these new

Web windows onto life in a younger America.

 —Bob Zich

 National Digital Library Program

202/707-1543; bobz7@aol.com

Reproduced from the collections of the Library of Congress
THE NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM

8 APRIL 1996

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

A PERIODIC REPORT FROM

THE NATIONAL DIGITAL LIBRARY PROGRAM

Reports will be published about 12 times a

year, using gift funds. Comments and

suggestions are welcome.

Editorial Direction

Suzanne Thorin, Associate Librarian

Office of the Librarian

202/707-5220; SUTH@LOC.GOV

Laura Campbell, Director

National Digital Library Program

202/707-3300; LCAM@LOC.GOV

Managing Editor

Caroline Krewson

202/707-5220; CKRE@LOC.GOV

Associate Editor

Guy Lamolinara

202/707-9217; GLAM@LOC.GOV

* World Wide Web Access

URL: http://lcweb.loc.gov/ndl/per.html

ISSN 1083-3978

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THIS REPORT

IS ON THE WEB*

History comes

alive for students

of all ages on the

Library’s Worldwide Web site.

Among the newest additions are

these daguerreotype images of

Abraham and

Mary Todd

Lincoln, taken

between 1846 and

1850 by Nicholas

H. Shepherd.

Story starts on page 5.

LIBRARY’S

AMERICANA

COLLECTION

ENRICHES THE

INTERNET

From the Daguerreotype Collection—Library of Congress

COPYRIGHT OFFICE MILESTONE—

MOVING TOWARD ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION

SEE PAGE 1