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

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

Secondary traumatic stress in the emergency department

Aim: To investigate the prevalence of secondary traumatic stress among Emergency nurses in the West of Scotland and explore their experiences of this. Background: Unexpected death, trauma and violence are regular occurrences that contribute to the stressful environment nurses working in the Emergency department experience. A potential consequence of repeated exposure to such stressors can be referred to as secondary traumatic stress. Design: Triangulation of methods of data collection, using two distinct phases: Phase 1 – quantitative Phase 2 – qualitative Methods: Quantitative data were collated via postal questionnaire, from a convenience sample of Emergency nurses. Qualitative data were subsequently collated from a focus group constituting of a random sample of these Emergency nurses. Descriptive statistics were computed and thematic analysis conducted. All data were collated during February 2013. Results/findings: 75% of the sampled Emergency nurses reported at least one secondary traumatic stress symptom in the last week. Participants said that acute occupational stressors such as resuscitation and death were the influencing factors towards this. Strategies such as formal debriefing and social support were cited as beneficial tools for the management of secondary traumatic stress; however, barriers such as time and experience were found to inhibit their common use. Conclusion: Secondary traumatic stress is a prevalent phenomenon among Emergency nurses in the West of Scotland and if not managed appropriately, could represent a significant barrier to the mental health of this group and their capacity to provide quality care

UK Copyright Literacy Survey: summary report

The Copyright Literacy Survey aimed to gather data of copyright awareness amongst UK librarians and those working in related cultural heritage organisations, such as galleries, archives and museums. The data was gathered in late 2014 following several significant changes to UK copyright law, including several new exceptions of relevance to librarians and those working in the education and cultural heritage sectors. The survey instrument was developed in Bulgaria and findings from phase one of the project from four countries (Bulgaria, France, Turkey and Croatia) were presented at the European Conference of Information Literacy in 2014. In order to allow cross-country comparisons, the questions were devised by the original project team and only minor changes to reflect UK terminology and institutions were made. This report provides a high level summary of the key findings from the UK survey. The researchers will undertake further analysis to compare the findings to other countries and to draw conclusions from the data. Further publications and conference papers are planned later in 2015, but due to the high level of interest in the survey it was considered appropriate to release a summary of the data at this stage

Pollinator attractiveness of five weeds

The number of pollinators in agro-ecosystems world wide has declined alarminglyin recent decades due to poora gricultural practices such as the intensive use of pesticides and monocultures.Postprint (published version

From anxiety to empowerment: supporting librarians develop copyright literacy

Copyright is a subject that increasingly has a major impact on the library and information profession, particularly as librarians create, preserve and provide access to digital collections. However, it is a subject that many librarians shy away from providing advice about. In higher education most universities now employ a copyright officer or nominate someone to be the copyright specialist to deal with queries of this nature. While it is highly valuable to build up expertise in the many complexities of copyright, this approach can create a gulf between library staff and the specialist copyright officer. The consequences are that many librarians feel justified in passing on their queries to their dedicated specialist and don’t build up their knowledge and understanding in this field. In this short article we present emerging findings from an exploratory study to examine librarians’ experiences of copyright in their professional lives

The publishing trap! A game of scholarly communication

In a complex, evolving scholarly communications environment, it is more important than ever for researchers to have access to information and support resources relating to copyright and intellectual property rights. However, many among the academic community continue to view copyright as something of a problem and difficult to engage with. Experimenting with new ways to communicate and critically examine the challenges and opportunities copyright presents to researchers, Chris Morrison and Jane Secker have created The Publishing Trap, an exciting new board game through which players learn about the relationship between knowledge, impact, and money, and how choices they make about their intellectual property will prove central to their academic success

Equality and diversity in learning and teaching in Scottish universities: trends, perspectives and opportunities

This publication reports on a desk-based analysis of engagement with equality and diversity in learning and teaching at Scotland’s universities. It: provides an overview of the higher education policy ecosystem in Scotland in which the equality and diversity agenda operates; explores current trends in learning and teaching practices, processes and regimes in relation to equality and diversity; offers theoretical and practical explorations of opportunities and ways forward to improve student learning in this area that concentrate less on fixed curriculum-design methods and methodologies, and more on relational approaches to change

Liberating data: how libraries and librarians can help researchers with text and data mining.

With advances in computational methods and the proliferation of data sources, text and data mining offers exciting new directions for research. Neil Stewart, Jane Secker, Chris Morrison and Laurence Horton look at the role of libraries in providing support to researchers for these projects, particularly to help with rights issues and to digitise material for scholarly re-use. Librarians should be bold about the advice they give to researchers and encourage them to use the new copyright exceptions