Babak Zarin

• BA (Philosophy and History of Math and Science); JD; LLM (Intellectual Property, focus on Technology); MSLIS (Law Librarianship Concentration)
• Librarian at Independent Researcher

Recipes are lists of ingredients and directions for making or preparing something, especially food. Recipes can be complicated formulas that chefs, restaurants, and corporations have relied on for generations. Other forms of intellectual property law, such as copyright law, offer little protection, and thus cooks have had to rely on trade secrecy t...

In this piece I examine the privacy concerns faced by costume players, or cosplayers, as a means of beginning to examine the question of how privacy can still exist in an increasingly public world. I first offer a brief overview of philosophical and current legal approaches to the concept of privacy, and then discuss the cosplay community and its c...

This paper is divided into three parts. Part I presents a very brief historical overview of the evolution of artificial intelligence (or "AI"). Part II then discusses some of the ways AI is currently used, and how this use offers librarians opportunities and challenges. Finally, Part III discusses how future AI may operate, and how librarians may h...

Wellness concerns in both the library and legal profession have become well known as awareness of the toll of working in either profession has grown. Yet how are law librarians, who operate in both professions, meant to engage with these concerns? This chapter provides some initial guidance and insight into this question, beginning with a review of...

In the Fall of 2019, the Central Rappahannock Regional Library (CRRL) began reaching out to the Library of Virginia (LVA) to create a state Deaf Culture Digital Library. Over the next two years, members of the two institutions were able to work together and successfully develop Virginia’s Deaf Culture Digital Library (https://deaflibva.org/), with...

You've probably heard a lot about how to make your library successfully accessible, but have you heard about what it looks like when you *don't*? This session will review common inaccessibility decisions libraries make, what the impact of them is, and how they can be avoided in the future.

Creating a welcoming, inclusive environment for library patrons with disabilities takes time, research, and consideration, requiring up-front assessment and strategy in order to meet the variety of needs such patrons have. At the Central Rappahannock Regional Library, we conducted both physical and digital accessibility audits this past fall at two...

The processes by which sound records are preserved have become a hot topic in Library and Information Science (LIS) circles in recent years, as both technological shifts and cultural concern for preservation have drawn attention to how little of the nation's sound and music files remain for future use and access. While much of the literature has fo...

This essay is split into four parts. Part I discusses Islamic law in general and the arguments regarding intellectual property rights. Parts II and III then discuss the state of legal protection for derivative works and fanfiction within the United States and internationally. Finally, Part IV examines potential scenarios for fanfiction that could r...

Libraries pride themselves on offering strong collections for their communities, but given the increasingly diverse communities they serve, conflicts about what should be included in the collection are inevitable. How can modern librarians ethically navigate this grey zone between offering patrons the resources they need without hurting the communi...

Libraries pride themselves on offering strong collections for their communities, but given the increasingly diverse communities they serve, conflicts about what should be included in the collection are inevitable. How can modern librarians ethically navigate this grey zone between offering patrons the resources they need without hurting the communi...

Information professionals have long been accustomed to helping individuals to access reliable information upon request. Yet the arrival of the internet and social media has caused them to increasingly face the impact of non-professionals sharing views and information directly without engaging information professionals in the process. How then shoul...

In recent years, curators of cultural heritage institutions have been placed under pressure to "come out" and "go among the people," bringing their collections outside the physical confines of their placement in order to facilitate greater access to them. This act brings with it numerous challenges, including how to effectively engage archival and...

In recent years, curators of cultural heritage institutions have been placed under pressure to "come out" and "go among the people," bringing their collections outside the physical confines of their placement in order to facilitate greater access to them. This act brings with it numerous challenges, including how to effectively engage archival and...

The rise of online media storage and hosting has led to users creating their own collections and curation systems, many of which do not incorporate formal understandings LIS specialists have. How then should LIS specialists best curate and make accessible collections when collections are increasingly user­maintained? To begin analyzing this, I cond...

The rise of online media storage and hosting has led to users creating their own collections and curation systems, many of which do not incorporate formal understandings LIS specialists have. How then should LIS specialists best curate and make accessible collections when collections are increasingly user­maintained? To begin analyzing this, I cond...

How should international treaties take into account the right of a singular people to create and share their culture? To examine this question, this essay takes as a case study the creation and spread of Japanese Dojinsihi culture and the legal challenges it faces on international scale, particularly with regard to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Th...

In this paper I look at the history of conscientious objection in the United States. I begin by discussing the process of claiming it prior to World War I, the changes that system underwent in World War II, and the challenges it faced during the Vietnam War. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of the problem with the system today, potential solut...

This analysis of "Average Avengers Local Chapter 7 of New York," by hetrez (2012) assesses gay advocacy Keywords: Case study, Fan fiction, Literary criticism, Slash

This paper discusses how the WB/CW show Supernatural, as well as fandom vidmaker Luminosity's fan vid "The Fifth Circle," use allusions to Dante’s Inferno to depict what are the sins of Supernatural's main characters Sam and Dean Winchester, as well as what would be needed for those sins to be absolved.