Copyright Literacy of Cultural Heritage Workers in the Czech Republic with a Focus on Librarians

• Authors: VIZVÁRY Pavla
• Year of publication: 2021
• Type: Appeared in Conference without Proceedings
• MU Faculty or unit: Faculty of Arts
• Description: Research Background By definition, cultural heritage should be made available to as many people as possible. Information technologies add new advantages to this field (Morrison & Secker, 2015). But at the same time, there are limits in work with cultural heritage, especially under intellectual privacy law. These two sides of work with cultural heritage create challenges for librarians, museologists, archivists, gallerists and other workers in cultural heritage institutions. They must have a sufficient level of copyright literacy to deal with them well. It “include[s] identifying copyright-protected materials, navigating fair use and fair dealing, obtaining permissions and licenses where necessary, and recognising infringement of copyright law.” (Harris, 2017) New documents such as the IFLA Statement on Copyright Education and Copyright Literacy (IFLA, 2018) confirm the increasing importance of copyright literacy not only for librarians. An international research group initiated by Tania Todorova (Bulgaria) described opinions and competencies of librarians and other cultural heritage workers in copyright literacy in thirteen countries (Todorova et al., 2017). Objectives and Methodology This survey was focused on the knowledge and opinions of cultural heritage workers, especially librarians, in copyright literacy in the Czech Republic. The research followed the methodology of a multinational survey designed by Todorova et al. (2017). Therefore, we can compare Czech results internationally. They can serve not only to describe the situation, but also, they should be reflected in the improvement of services of cultural heritage institutions and further education of their workers. Data collection took place via an online questionnaire in Google Forms between 16th November and 18th December 2019. Four gatekeepers from the management of national professional organizations distributed the questionnaire link using their internal mailing lists. We received 313 responses covering all types of institutions (approximately two-thirds from librarians). Outcomes Respondents evaluate their copyright literacy rather positively. They feel the most comfortable in licensing conditions in their institution followed by copyright and related law and copyright-related institutions - both topics only on the national level. When they need answers about copyright, they use web pages most often (77.6%). Almost half of the respondents had some knowledge shortcomings in exceptions in copyright for cultural heritage institutions. 74.3% think that institutional copyright policy is necessary but only 22.4% of institutions have dedicated workers specialised in copyright. The majority of respondents think that copyright literacy education is necessary both at the university level and in further professional education. References Harris, L. E. (2017). Copyright literacy and translating copyright to a life skill. Copyrightlaws.com. Retrieved February 5, 2018, from https://www.copyrightlaws.com/copyright-literacy-copyright-life-skill/ IFLA. (2018). IFLA Statement on Copyright Education and Copyright Literacy. Retrieved December 16, 2019 from https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/67342 Morrison, C., & Secker, J. (2015). Copyright Literacy in the UK: a survey of librarians and other cultural heritage sector professionals. Library and Information Research, 39(121), 75–97. Retrieved February 5, 2018, from http://www.lirgjournal.org.uk/lir/ojs/index.php/lir/article/view/675 Todorova, T. Y., Kurbanoglu, S., Boustany, J., Dogan, G., Saunders, L., Horvat, A., Terra, A. L., et al. (2017). Information professionals and copyright literacy: a multinational study. Library Management, 38(6/7), 323–344. Retrieved February 05, 2018, from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/10.1108/LM-01-2017-0007