Electronic reserves and fair use: The outer limits of CONFU

The Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) failed twice to develop fair‐use guidelines for electronic reserves. The first occurred during initial rounds of discussion that reached complete impasse in November 1995. Subsequent efforts by a smaller group proposed draft guidelines in March 1996, but influential participants attacked that document as both too restrictive and too lenient. The draft was ultimately excluded from the CONFU Report. Failure to reach consensus on electronic reserves may be attributed to diverse understandings of the law, to struggles over pivotal requirements of key negotiators, and even to the diverging perspectives of the role and meaning of electronic reserves. Although fair‐use guidelines are, at best, suggestions of an understanding of fair use, the electronic‐reserve guidelines offer a reasonable application, albeit not an exclusive interpretation, of fair use. The exclusion of electronic‐reserve guidelines from CONFU may have been an important step in clarifying that no one is bound by these guidelines or any other guidelines, and in underscoring the responsibility that educators and librarians have for achieving a good‐faith understanding of fair use.