Wholeheartedly agree.

Simply asking permission implies whoever you're asking has more business
determining whether you have the right to do something than you do. It also
implies you expect them to offer an opinion. People who don't know what's
going on say "no" in such situations. The result is everything gets bogged
down and no work gets done.

A much better way to go is to use the "front page test." If your picture is
plastered on the front page of the newspaper along with an explanation of
what you did, are you sorry (this is not the same as asking if someone
disapproves)?

In the case at hand, your project should not be jeopardized if a bonehead
among us doesn't get that info they make freely available on the open Web
might actually be used...

kyle



On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 9:19 AM, Notess, Mark H <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> They are public: https://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind1206&L=CODE4LIB
>
> Have at it.
>
> While I fully support ethical research and even IRBs, we do everyone a
> disservice by appealing to IRBs to approve things that don't require their
> approval, even if we're just doing so to be "careful." It reminds me of
> the disservice we libraries sometimes do by asking for permission to use
> things when we could instead make a fair use argument.
>
> Best,
>
> Mark
>