Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) is a concept that allows libraries and other institutions who have purchased physical materials to loan them digitally without violating copyright law.

In normal circumstances, a library is allowed to check out as many copies of a title as they have legally purchased. With physical items, this is relatively straightfoward since it isn't usually possible to check out more copies than we physically own.

However, with digital items the situation becomes more complex. The concept of CDL takes the idea that a library is allowed to check out the same number of copies of an item that it physically owns and applies it to digital scanned copies as well. So if a library owns three copies of a particular title, it would be allowed to loan 3 digital copies of a scanned version of the title as well as long as a few conditions are met.

Those conditions are:

1. the phyiscal items must not be available at the same time, and
2. the same limits that apply to physical items must apply to digital items, meaning no more than one user of any given copy at a time.

The Salisbury University Libraries Controlled Digital Lending System was created to apply these restrictions so that we can continue to provide access to our Course Reserves materials during the COVID-19 pandemic. At this time, we do not expect to continue the program after campus returns to normal operations.

You can read more about the concept of Controlled Digital Lending here. If you have questions about the program, please feel free to contact us.