2017/07/24 by Chris Morrison, Jane Secker · 24 citations
Arts and Humanities · Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #Computer science #Context (archaeology) #Copyright and Intellectual Property #Digital and Traditional Archives Management #Information literacy #Library Science and Information Literacy #Originality #Pedagogy #Phenomenography #Political science #Public relations #Qualitative research #Social science #Sociology #Space (punctuation) #Value (mathematics) #Variety (cybernetics)
paper · doi:10.1108/lm-01-2017-0011
published in Library Management 38(6/7), 354-368 (Emerald Publishing Limited)
openalex publication_date 2017/07/24 · crossref created 2017/07/24 · crossref issued 2017/08/15 · crossref published 2017/08/15 · crossref published-print 2017/08/15 · crossref deposited 2025/07/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28 · crossref indexed 2026/07/31
Purpose Librarians and information professionals increasingly need to deal with copyright issues in their work, however evidence suggests that they can lack confidence and often refer queries to a dedicated copyright specialist. The purpose of this paper is to explore the professional experiences of copyright of a group of academic librarians in the UK, with a view to devising appropriate copyright education strategies. Design/methodology/approach The research was conducted using phenomenography, which is a qualitative approach from education. Data were collected though group interviews to explore the variation of experience. Four categories of description were devised which are placed in an outcome space. Findings There were four qualitatively distinct ways that librarians experience copyright in their professional lives, including viewing it as a problem, as complicated, as a known entity and as an opportunity. The variations in experience relate to a variety of factors such as the librarians’ role, ideology, level of experience, context and with whom they might be dealing. Originality/value This is the first study of this nature, building on quantitative findings from a multinational survey. It concludes that librarians need to be taught about copyright in a way that acknowledges and addresses the challenges so that they can view it as empowering and as part of wider information literacy initiatives.