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Friday, August 28, 2009

Ind. Gov't. - Allen County's ordinances online [Updated]

From WOWO 1190 AM:

Allen County has teamed up with IPFW's Helmke Library to put the entire county code online. The site includes a search feature that you can use to browse county laws and ordinances. Access is free...you can check it out for yourself by clicking here.
Each of the 19 Titles of the Code is available as a separate PDF document.

This is useful. Most cities and towns ordinances are available online only behind very clunky interfaces run by national companies. For instance, here are Fort Wayne's, linked from the City website.

But not so fast. The new Allen County site also states:

Copyright Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, 2009. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced without permission.
So what exactly is copyrighted? What does this language mean as applied here. Has IUPUFW copyrighted the Allen County Code? Does this mean you may not quote it without obtaining written permission? Did IUPUFW obtain permission from the county before they slapped a copyright on its ordinances?

Also, where does it say how current this County Code is and how frequently it is / will be updated?

[Updated 8/29/09] A reader has sent me a link to a release about the new, online Allen County Code. It answers the last question above:

Each title of the County Code is displayed individually and can be searched by keyword or by specific Article section. The Allen County Commissioner's Office will provide quarterly updates to the code and a year-end final version that will be archived in the IPFW Helmke Library's historical digital collection.
Notices, perhaps on the Table of Contents, stating "This Code is updated quarterly and was most recently updated ..." will help orient the user.

Archiving a final version of the entire Code each year as, for instance, the Allen County Code for the year 2008" is a very good idea. One caution -- what if one of those 2008 ordinances had been changed in the middle of 2008? How will the researcher know? Perhaps tables or history lines, or both. And how to locate the version before the change? Things to think about ...

Re the copyright issue, ILB readers will remember earlier related entries, including this one protesting the fact that the bulk of the language in Indiana's administrative building codes is not available online or on paper unless it is purchased from a private organization that has copyrighted it.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 28, 2009 02:01 PM
Posted to Indiana Government