What did we do
Our current research uses a version of the Copyright Anxiety Scale modified for higher education. Over 500 partici- pants were recruited in 2023 with almost identical numbers from each country. To capture qualitative data we followed up the survey with seven focus groups, five conducted in the UK and two in Canada, to further explore how copyright anxiety
manifested itself and the impact it had on the work of higher education staff. Library workers formed a significant percentage of the survey respondents (57 per cent) and the participants in the focus groups.
Key findings?
The survey found that higher education professionals worry they do not know enough about copyright, with more respondents in the UK (59.7 per cent) reporting this than those in Canada (51.8 per cent) (See Figure 1). Meanwhile more respondents in Canada claimed to be confused by copyright (55 per cent) than those in the UK (46.4 per cent). In addition, 25 per cent of respondents working in higher education in both the UK and Canada said they had avoided or not completed activities or projects in the workplace because of copyright issues. Respondents also reported that copyright hampered or prevented them from doing something as part of their work. Com- pared to the 2019 study, those working in higher education were more likely to report hampering due to copyright, with 39 per cent of Canadian respondents and 50 per cent of UK respondents replying in the affirmative.
The focus groups helped us to understand more about the impact of copyright anxiety.
We found copyright anxiety impacts all aspects of work in higher education, with a clear impediment on teaching and learning activities. For example, many participants reported that their first choice of content could often not be used for teaching, due to copyright concerns. Participants also described delays with research projects. For example, some projects were ham- pered, others abandoned, and it was reported that PhD students can often spend a considerable amount of time dealing with copyright related to the open access deposit of their thesis.
Unsurprisingly, library services are also impacted by copyright anxiety. Participants described items that cannot be digitised, services that are curtailed, and librarians that spend an unreasonable amount of time trying to resolve copyright issues for their colleagues.
Copyright anxiety manifestation During our focus groups we tried to under- stand how copyright anxiety manifests and discovered a number of themes in the data including:
l Copyright causes frustration;
l copyright causes discomfort when library staff feel like a gatekeeper;
l copyright causes discomfort because of the uncertainty;
Autumn 2025
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