Awareness and Perception of Copyright Among Library and Information Science Professionals in Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

This chapter describes the background, methodology, and results of a preliminary study undertaken in 2018 to determine university faculty awareness and perceptions of copyright as it affects teaching and learning. Copyright remains the cardinal bridge between creation and access to knowledge and knowledge-based materials. However, the issue of copyright awareness has now become a global concern. Since tertiary education revolves around the use of other people's copyrighted works, this study seeks to investigate the level of copyright awareness among Library and Information Science Professionals in Tamil Nadu, India. The study revealed that copyright awareness among LIS professionals is not up to the level expected due to the fact that the academic institution does not have copyright awareness policy to effectively regulate, monitor, and protect its intellectual property, academic and institutional values, as well as to defend its teaching, research, and service mission. This study shows that most of the respondents belonging to ‘below 25 years' (50%) and ‘26 to 35 years' (41.5%) age groups use copyrighted information by ‘seeking permission from copyright holder(s)', followed by ‘crediting original author/authority' (respectively 37.5% and 24.4%).