Fair use is part of U.S. copyright law which gives exceptions to certain uses of copyrighted materials, which would otherwise be illegal. For educators, we recommend that every time you make a paper or digital copy of a work, you take a moment to determine if that copy would be considered fair use.
Personal research is legal: A copy of a portion of a book or an article for personal research use is typically legal under federal copyright law.
Paper copies to distribute in class: If you are an instructor and want to copy and distribute materials for student use, the answer becomes more complicated. See the Library's Copyright and Fair Use guide, and ask one of your Kirkwood librarians for further assistance. We are happy to help you with this.
Digital copy to post to Talon: See answer above. In copyright law, whether you make a paper copy or digital copy, it still goes against copyright law unless fair use applies. See the Library's Copyright and Fair Use guide, and ask one of your Kirkwood librarians for further assistance. We are happy to help you with this.
Alternative to a digital copy: If the material you want to post to Talon is already available online (for example an article in an online newspaper, or an article from a library database) we recommend you simply provide a link to the article from within Talon. Because you're not creating a copy of the material, you do not need to be concerned about fair use.
