Kenneth Crews
Kenneth Crews
Kenneth Crews joined Columbia University in January 2008 as founding director of the Copyright Advisory Office (CAO). The principal service of the CAO is to provide guidance with respect to the relationship between copyright law and the research, teaching, and service mission of the University community. Beginning in 1994, Dr. Crews was director of the first such copyright office if its type, based on the IUPUI campus of Indiana University (IU). At Indiana he also held a named professorship in the Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis, with a joint appointment in the IU School of Library and Information Science.
His main research interest has been the relationship of copyright law to the needs of higher education. His first copyright book, Copyright, Fair Use, and the Challenge for Universities: Promoting the Progress of Higher Education, was published by the University of Chicago Press in October 1993, and it reevaluated understandings of copyright and policymaking at the university. A more recent book, Copyright Law for Librarians and Educators, published in a fully revised second edition by the American Library Association in 2006, has been widely received as an insightful and practical source for understanding copyright law. Crews has been an invited speaker on college and university campuses and at conferences in 43 U.S. states and on five continents. He has participated in many governmental commissions and task forces addressing copyright issues.
Dr. Crews brings a variety of academic and professional experiences to his duties at the University. He earned his undergraduate degree in history from Northwestern University and received his law degree from Washington University in St. Louis. He practiced general business and corporate law in Los Angeles from 1980 to 1990, primarily for the entertainment industry. During those years, Crews returned to graduate school and he earned his MLS and PhD degrees from UCLA's School of Library and Information Science. Between 1990 and 1994 he was a professor of business law in California.
During 2003, Crews was the Intellectual Property Scholar for the Center for Intellectual Property and Copyright in the Digital Environment, University of Maryland University College, and he has served as a faculty member for the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center since its inception in 2003. Dr. Crews was the first recipient of a major award from the American Library Association (ALA) in 2005. Named for a leading advocate of public rights, the L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award was granted in a festive ceremony at the ALA Annual Meeting.
Crews brings a wide range of experience to the task. He has been a faculty member in three disciplines: law, business, and library and information science. His publications encompass the fields of copyright, constitutional law, political history, and library science. He has worked in a university archives and conducted historical research on windmills and tide mills on Long Island, N.Y., for the National Park Service. In rare moments of recreation Crews enjoys bicycling, hiking, architecture, astronomy, archeology, art, and early rock and roll. He is married and has two college-age children.
His main research interest has been the relationship of copyright law to the needs of higher education. His first copyright book, Copyright, Fair Use, and the Challenge for Universities: Promoting the Progress of Higher Education, was published by the University of Chicago Press in October 1993, and it reevaluated understandings of copyright and policymaking at the university. A more recent book, Copyright Law for Librarians and Educators, published in a fully revised second edition by the American Library Association in 2006, has been widely received as an insightful and practical source for understanding copyright law. Crews has been an invited speaker on college and university campuses and at conferences in 43 U.S. states and on five continents. He has participated in many governmental commissions and task forces addressing copyright issues.
Dr. Crews brings a variety of academic and professional experiences to his duties at the University. He earned his undergraduate degree in history from Northwestern University and received his law degree from Washington University in St. Louis. He practiced general business and corporate law in Los Angeles from 1980 to 1990, primarily for the entertainment industry. During those years, Crews returned to graduate school and he earned his MLS and PhD degrees from UCLA's School of Library and Information Science. Between 1990 and 1994 he was a professor of business law in California.
During 2003, Crews was the Intellectual Property Scholar for the Center for Intellectual Property and Copyright in the Digital Environment, University of Maryland University College, and he has served as a faculty member for the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center since its inception in 2003. Dr. Crews was the first recipient of a major award from the American Library Association (ALA) in 2005. Named for a leading advocate of public rights, the L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award was granted in a festive ceremony at the ALA Annual Meeting.
Crews brings a wide range of experience to the task. He has been a faculty member in three disciplines: law, business, and library and information science. His publications encompass the fields of copyright, constitutional law, political history, and library science. He has worked in a university archives and conducted historical research on windmills and tide mills on Long Island, N.Y., for the National Park Service. In rare moments of recreation Crews enjoys bicycling, hiking, architecture, astronomy, archeology, art, and early rock and roll. He is married and has two college-age children.
Photo Credit: Brian McLaughlin/Syracuse University Library