Banned Books Week: Amnesty International calls attention to those arrested for what they write, publish, or create

Guest post by Ed McKennon Library Faculty, Glendale Community College Amnesty International USA Working Group for Banned Books Each year in late summer, in preparation for the American Library Association (ALA) Banned Books Week campaign, I take the opportunity to review the Amnesty International Banned Books Week materials which offer a fascinating glimpse into global […]

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The 10-Minute International Librarian #87: Explain why books matter

This Saturday will be World Book and Copyright Day, launched by UNESCO in 1995 on 23 April – the day on which both Cervantes and Shakespeare died. It is also the day, in Catalonia, where it is traditional to offer books and roses as gifts. Of course there are many international days, but this is […]

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From the 17th to the 21st centuries: Copyright, Creativity and Access

Who should pay for creativity and how? And who should be able to access creative works and how? This blog looks both at how copyright is portrayed as a force for democratisation, but also at how the need to guarantee access and use of copyrighted works requires an approach that doesn’t just depend on the market.

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Joining the Fight Against the Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Property

On 14 November every year, the International Day against Illicit  Trafficking  in  Cultural Property stands as a reminder that theft, looting and illicit trafficking threaten the ongoing preservation of and access to the world’s cultural heritage. In the words of Audrey Azoulay, Director General of UNESCO: On this International Day, UNESCO therefore calls upon everyone […]

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Copyright and Sustainable Development – Part 2: Applying the logic of sustainability to copyright

As highlighted in the first part of this blog, the United Nations 2030 Agenda represents a new approach to overall development policy. That set out how the Agenda focuses on the full range of policy areas and countries (rather than a subset of each), and the interconnections between them. This stands in contrast to the […]

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COVID has forced us to think again about service provision: can it offer longer term lessons for how we serve persons with disabilities?

Tomorrow, the 14th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities starts, in New York and online. It will have, as an overarching theme, ‘building back better: COVID-19 response and recovery; meeting the needs, realizing the rights, and addressing the socio-economic impacts on persons with disabilities’. There’s […]

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Libraries as Consumers: Potential for Protection?

Earlier this year, we published a blog looking at the degree to which competition law and policy could provide a useful lens for analysing the current state of markets for electronic content for libraries. As highlighted in the blog, the prices and terms that libraries face for electronic content raise serious concerns about the sustainability […]

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