Copyright Literacy in the UK: a survey of librarians and other cultural heritage sector professionals

Abstract

Based on a survey of UK library and information professionals and those who work in the cultural heritage sector, carried out in December 2014, this research sought to examine the levels of copyright ‘literacy’. The survey aimed to obtain responses from all sectors, however most responses were received from academic libraries. The research examined their knowledge of national and international copyright issues as well as copyright policies at an institutional level. The survey also explored the need for copyright education for new and existing professionals and suggested topics for inclusion in training activities. The findings suggest that levels of knowledge amongst UK professionals are higher than those in other countries who participated in the first phase of the project. UK institutions are also more likely to have a copyright policy and an individual with responsibility for copyright. The results should be of interest to library managers, library educators and those with responsibility for staff training.

Information professionals and copyright literacy: a multinational study

“…Comparative results for the four countries (BG, CR, FR, TR) that participated in the first stage have been previously published (Todorova et. al., 2014) as were national surveys results for Bulgaria, Finland, France, United Kingdom and United States of America (USA) (Boustany, 2014;Estell and Saunders, 2016;Kortelainen, 2015;Morrison and Secker, 2015;Todorova and Trencheva, 2014).…”

“…Prior to the Bulgarian study (Todorova et. al., 2014) there had been little previous research examining copyright knowledge either in the wider education community or in the library and information profession (Morrison and Secker, 2015). The few studies addressing these topics include a study of the copyright knowledge of academic librarians, undertaken in Kenya (Olaka and Adkins, 2012); а study of archivists' knowledge of copyright, carried out in Canada (Dryden, 2012); a study which explored the copyright knowledge of academic staff in the health sciences (Smith et al, 2006); a study in United Kingdom, which investigated copyright advice and guidance services offered by UK libraries (Oppenheim and Woodward, 2004) and another relevant study in the UK higher education sector by the National Union of Students (NUS) and the Government's Intellectual Property Office (IPO), which explored students' attitudes towards copyright and intellectual property (IP) (NUS, 2013).…”

“…In recent years, other terms and phrases have emerged along with the term "copyright literacy" (Boustany, 2014;Estell and Saunders, 2016;Frederiksen, 2016;Harris, 2015;Kortelainen, 2015;Morrison and Secker, 2015;Todorova and Trencheva, 2014;Todorova et. al., 2014;Yankova et.…”

Ten hot topics around scholarly publishing

“…Обычно один автор подписывает соглашение от имени всех, возможно, без их ведома или разрешения [101]. Полное понимание соглашений о передаче авторского права требует твердого знания «юридического языка» и авторского права во все более сложном лицензионном и авторском ландшафте 27, 28 , которому нужно обучаться [104,105]. Во многих случаях авторы, возможно, могут даже не иметь законных прав на передачу полных прав издателям, или в соглашения были внесены поправки, чтобы сделать полные тексты доступными в хранилищах или архивах, независимо от последующего издательского контракта 29 .…”

Ten myths around open scholarly publishing

“…Usually a single author is signing on behalf of all authors, perhaps without their awareness or permission (Gadd, Oppenheim, and Probets 2003a). The full understanding of copyright transfer agreements requires a firm grasp of 'legal speak' and copyright law, in an increasingly complex licensing and copyright landscape 20 , 21 , and for which a steep learning curve for librarians and researchers exists (Morrison and Secker 2015;Dawson and Yang 2016). Thus, in many cases, authors might not even have the legal rights to transfer full rights to publishers, or agreements have been amended to make full texts available on repositories or archives, regardless of the subsequent publishing contract (Suber 2007).…”