Awareness of Legal Issues Related to Libraries among Library Professionals of Gujarat

Abstract


 
 
 The awareness of legal issues related to libraries among library professionals in Gujarat is discussed in the current study. The research is based on an online survey of library professionals of Gujarat. The major findings of the survey reveal that there is an acute need to improve the awareness and knowledge about legal issues and legal provisions among LIS professionals in Gujarat. The results also show that educational background, experience, or designation have no correlation with level of awareness or knowledge about legal aspects among library professionals. This study provides indications to major legal issues that affect the work of library professionals and what resources may be needed to enhance the level of awareness and knowledge about legal aspects related to libraries.The current study is limited to the study of library professionals in Gujarat, India and has potential to be conducted on national scale to check the level of awareness and knowledge about legal issues and legal provisions and may also provide important indications to address the issue of training and education of library professionals.
 
 

Copyright literacy of library and information science professionals in Pakistan

“…Secker et al (2019), after giving a detailed account of experiences of copyright literacy in Norway, Turkey, Romania, the UK and Sweden, conclude that the present situation of the librarians in these regions in respect of copyright literacy is not up to the mark. Patel and Hanumappa’s (2019) study found that LIS professionals’ level of understanding about copyright was not ideal, although they were somewhat aware of the issues involved. According to Fernández-Molina et al (2017), comparatively, librarians have a higher degree of awareness of the validity of copyright, Creative Commons licences and the public domain.…”

“…The findings of the studies by Arias Coello et al (2020) and Saunders and Estell (2019) reveal that, in Spain and the USA, the majority of LIS students preferred to use websites, books, articles and librarians to learn about copyright and related rights. Patel and Hanumappa (2019) examine copyright and its legal aspects, and discuss the many dimensions of copyright literacy, concluding that the majority of their respondents consulted e-learning sources, journals and their professional counterparts to gain knowledge of legal issues. Gastinger and Landøy (2019), in a study on the copyright literacy of LIS students in Norway, found that they sought copyright-related advice from websites, books and articles.…”

“…The literature suggests that there has been a wide range of international studies undertaken in this area of knowledge (e.g. Arias Coello et al, 2020;Boustany, 2014;Eye, 2013;Hossain, 2021;Kelly, 2018;Kortelainen, 2015;Fernandez-Molina et-al., (2022); Patel and Hanumappa, 2019;Terra, 2016;Todorova et al, 2017), but in Pakistan copyright literacy is a somewhat less-researched area. In this context, the current study has been undertaken to fill this literature gap by investigating the copyright literacy of LIS professionals in Pakistan, which is a potential area of research.…”

“…In the area of copyright protection, library and information science (LIS) professionals are expected to have the appropriate skills in copyright and related issues, and therefore expected to resolve such issues through appropriate knowledge of and literacy in copyright (Eye, 2013; Patel and Hanumappa, 2019).…”

Censorship issues: awareness and preparedness among university librarians

“…First of all, the researchers studied the previous literature to understand the censorship issues, the role of the librarians in dealing with these issues, the awareness and preparedness of the librarians in this regard and scales used to measure the awareness and preparedness of the CLs. In the educational background (for librarians), several scales were established to quantify the awareness (Patel and Hanumappa, 2019) and the preparedness of librarians (Cooper, 2016) separately. However, these scales cannot be directly applied to measure the awareness and preparedness of CLs regarding censorship.…”