THE TEACH ACT PASSES AS AMENDMENT TO HR 5512 - Critical distance
education legislation, the TEACH Act, has now passed both houses of Congress as an
amendment to the Justice Department reauthorization bill (HR 5512). The language of
this legislation is identical to that of the Hatch-Leahy TEACH Act that the Senate passed
in June 2001 (CR S9889). The American Library Association (ALA) has long supported
this version. The President is expected to sign HR 5512 soon and the TEACH Act will go
into effect immediately.

The TEACH Act expands face-to-face teaching exemptions in the copyright law, allowing
teachers and faculty to use copyrighted works in the "digital classroom" without prior
permission from the copyright holder. The law is complex and details numerous
responsibilities that must be met before educational institutions (including their libraries)
can benefit from the exemptions. The ALA Washington Office has created a TEACH
Web site (http://www.ala.org/washoff/teach.html) to help members understand the
complexities of TEACH . In addition, the Office for Information Technology Policy will
offer an email tutorial on distance education and copyright in the near future. Watch the
Washington Office Web site and ALAWON for more information. (Grace Agnew,
Associate University Librarian for Digital Library Systems Rutgers, the State University
of New Jersey)