General approach
As a librarian you have diverse responsibilities and many calls on your time. Information management issues however are often higher on your agenda than they are for other school staff.
Generally your professional responsibilities include:
- having a working knowledge of the Copyright Act 1968, and the licence arrangements that your education department has with a number of collecting societies such as Copyright Agency Ltd, (CAL);
- being individually responsible for compliance with the Copyright Act 1968;
- ensuring technology in your ambit complies with notice requirements under copyright law; and
- ensuring that relevant documentation (CAL Survey) is completed in appropriate detail.
You are also instrumental in:
- building a school culture that values and respects intellectual endeavour and honours the access privileges accorded to the education sector; and
- modelling responsible information practices to students as the new generation of knowledge workers.
Specific actions
Here are the specific actions that we suggest you implement in your library or in your school if you have responsibility for copyright issues more generally.
Education
Appraise your own and your colleagues' knowledge of copyright issues through the Copyright Awareness test included in the resource pack.
Familiarise yourself with the major changes in copyright law and its implementation by reading material provided on this website and by pursuing any relevant links to other resources.
If you supervise other staff, or have responsibility for copyright issues within your school, you should provide information and training on the changes in copyright. You can do this by:
- pointing to material on this website;
- downloading and distributing the information on changes to copyright law;
- using the Copyright Presentation included in the resource pack as a basis for a training session; and/or
- requesting a more specific professional development or resourcing from your own education authority.
Copyright materials
Reviewing current library practices in relation to:
- access to both hard copy and electronic copyright material;
- reproduction, communication and publication of copyright materials; and
- the legal and operational information required to accompany copyright material that is reproduced, communicated and published.
Updating the required notices by downloading or installing them from this website.
Technology
Reviewing the school library’s technology arrangements including the:
- use of technology to reproduce and communicate copyright material;
- placement and environment that technology operates in; and
- legal and operational information required to be associated with that technology.
Updating if required, the notices associated with technology used to reproduce, communicate or publish copyrighted materials, by downloading or installing them from this website.
Building a culture of responsible information use
Copyright is one dimension of a more challenging issue – information management. The Copyright Aware website aims to assist schools to use information responsibly. Libraries are a critical hub in information management and are pivotal in empowering staff and students in this area.
Building a culture of responsible information use calls for a variety of approaches, here are some suggestions.
Undertake an awareness raising campaign on copyright by using the Copyright Aware posters and screen savers included in the resource pack.
Develop a resource base on useful copyright information that caters for the differing needs of people in the schools community. As this is an ongoing role for a library here are a few pointers.
- Bookmarking and promoting the Copyright Aware website to your school community.
- Following the site links to further information and resources on copyright.
- Printing and prominently displaying the Knowing the Limits Poster, included in the resource pack.
- Subscribing to e-newsletters on copyright, such as the Attorney Generals Department’s eNews on Copyright.
- Building up an education specific collection of resource material on copyright.
- Running regular short news updates through the school newsletter or intranet on copyright issues. There is a short article that you can use on current issues in the resource pack, and there will be regular news updates published on the Copyright Aware website.
Run a program of library driven activities on responsible information use. Topics could include “information finding and selection for teachers”.
Additionally you could also refer to the pathways for Principals and Technicians on this website which offers further resources and a whole school strategy for building a culture of responsible information use.
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