Urheberrechtskompetenz – ein Thema für Bibliotheken?!

Status Quo und Perspektiven

Abstract

Copyright Literacy is defined as the ability to deal critically with the protection of intellectual property and its legally permitted uses, to publish one’s own works in a suitable manner and to use and disseminate other people‘s works legally and responsibly. Based on this definition the paper presents the results of a survey among German librarians on their copyright literacy and on copyright education at German academic libraries. The results are compared with the results of a multinational study on copyright literacy, and the promotion of copyright literacy in libraries is discussed. While the IFLA Statement on Copyright Education and Copyright Literacy puts copyright literacy on the international agenda, the copyright literacy of German librarians is generally weak. As a consequence, it is argued that the promotion of copyright literacy should be an essential part of the information literacy programs of academic libraries.