The IFLA Advisory Committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters is happy to share a survey on attitudes among academic librarians to copyright reform in support of open access, with surveys in English and French. We encourage you to respond!

A key role of the Advisory Committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters is to build awareness and activism around copyright and related issues that affect libraries’ ability to fulfill their missions. 

In light of this, we’re happy to share news of a new survey on Copyright and Open Access to Research:  An International Survey of Academic Librarians.  This will enable a study on the attitudes of academic librarians toward copyright reform in support of open access. Given the importance of this topic to the IFLA community, the Advisory Committee on Copyright and Related Legal Matters brings this to your attention and would appreciate you supporting this research by participating and/or sharing the below information with your networks. 

The survey includes 7 items and seeks to determine attitudes about copyright reform, including who can advocate for reform and what types of reforms are supported. 

The Co-investigators of this study are Stephanie Savage, Scholarly Communications and Copyright Services Librarian, University of British Columbia, and John Willinsky, Khosla Family Professor, Emeritus, Stanford University. If you have questions about this study, please contact them at stephanie.savage@ubc.ca or willinsk@stanford.edu. As CLM, we are looking forward to drawing on the results to support our work.

Who should respond?

This study is looking for participants who are currently working as academic librarians in post-secondary institutions on an international scale and is open to all academic librarians, regardless of area of focus. Participants do not need expertise in copyright or scholarly publishing to contribute.

The survey is available in French and English and is open to all academic librarians, regardless of area of expertise. Participants are asked to complete an online survey that is expected to take no more than 15 minutes. The survey closes on April 30, 2024. 

You will be asked to consent to participating in the study before beginning the survey. Please note that upon consenting to participate, all further survey responses will be recorded and considered in the research analysis, even in cases where the participant does not complete the survey.

Personal contact or identifying information will not be collected.

If you choose to participate in this study, please click on this link to access the online survey: 

English Version: https://bit.ly/3Str9Nq 

French Version: https://bit.ly/3Hvs21s