On April 27, 1992, The Annenberg Washington Program in Communications Policy Studies of Northwestern University sponsored a colloquium to define and examine new choices for scholarly communication in a multimedia environment. In particular, the colloquium considered "fair use" of copyrighted materials, exploring a broad set of issues from the perspectives of scholars, publishers, librarians, and copyright lawyers. Discussion focused on how these actors might create a balance between ensuring reasonable proprietary rights for creators and copyright owners, while at the same time maintaining legitimate access rights for information seekers in an electronic publishing/dissemination environment.