Honor for Harbeson will take him to Finland

Harbeson

Eric Harbeson, music special collections librarian at the University of Colorado Boulder, recently became the first recipient of the Robert L. Oakley Memorial Scholarship Award, which bestows honorees with $1,000 to offset the costs associated with attending the International Federation of Library Association (IFLA) Conference in August in Helsinki, Finland. The award was presented by the American Library Association (ALA) and the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA).

The Oakley scholarship award will be presented to Harbeson at the ALA’s 2012 annual conference in Anaheim, Calif. in June. Harbeson will present a paper at the conference on copyright and other legal issues surrounding institutionally produced sound recordings.

The award was established to support research and advance study for librarians in their early to mid-careers who are interested in and/or active in the fields that Robert Oakley was expert in — intellectual property, public policy, copyright and their impacts on libraries and the ways libraries serve their communities. The intent of the scholarship is to support librarians who will be strong advocates for balanced copyright in the years to come and to provide development opportunities related to copyright and related issues that they might not otherwise have.

Award recipients are expected to bring their interest and energy back to library associations by mentoring new librarians in information policy, sharing expertise and actively engaging in public policy and library advocacy.

Harbeson’s research focuses on copyright and other legal issues concerning recordings of student recitals, school-sponsored performing ensembles and theater programs. His research will examine both legal theories and the practical application of such theories at research libraries that wish to preserve and provide access to these myriad collections.