Report on Activities

The bulk of SIF’s work takes place under Knowledge Rights 21, which is made possible through a grant from the Arcadia Foundation. The Programme is being implemented by IFLA in coordination with its partners LIBER and SPARC Europe.

The goal of the grant is to achieve and implement reforms to copyright law and regulation that enable libraries to provide significantly greater possibilities to access and use copyrighted works. The Programme aims to promote reform at the European and national levels and provide valuable examples for the rest of the world.

Knowledge Rights 21 is focused on 5 main activities:

  • Facilitating access to e-books for users of public and academic libraries;
  • Protecting users’ rights from contract override and technological protection measures;
  • Socialising open norms in Europe;
  • Advocating for legislated secondary publishing rights;
  • Accelerating the uptake of rights retention.

The programme also aims to build strong networks on copyright in national library fields and enable these to work closely together with partner stakeholders, in line with its long-term goal of ensuring that libraries are able to bring their voices to the table in subsequent reforms and debates.

In 2023, the Programme built further on what had been achieved in 2022, with continued work and completion of a number of the research projects launched then, ongoing work to strengthen our network of National Coordinators and direct advocacy in Brussels. Overall, it has already delivered on some of its objectives, and is making progress on the others.

In terms of published outputs, the Programme delivered, in 2023:

  • A report on rights retention, looking at the experience of institutions in developing and implementing such policies, what features they have, and what challenges they have encountered. It also looks at publisher practices and to some extent at researcher experience. This is designed to provide a much stronger evidence base for supporting uptake of such policies at institutional level;
  • A report on secondary publishing rights, analysing those policies already in place in order to identify strengths and weaknesses, and provide an evidence base for a more widespread and meaningful uptake of such rights both at the national and European levels;
  • An internal report on the competition aspects of library eBook markets for distribution to policy-makers.

In addition, work is ongoing on the following:

  • A full report on eBook markets for public and academic and research libraries;
  • A report on eLending and secure digital lending;
  • A study on contract override, based on 100 contracts offered to libraries across Europe;
  • A study on open norms, drawing lessons from countries which have introduced fair use or comparable measures into their copyright rules;
  • A study into the nature of technological protection measures (TPMs) used to control use of copyrighted materials and their impacts on the work of researchers (as well as the effectiveness of provisions to allow for their circumvention);
  • A study into the impact of different research rights from one country to the next on researcher behaviour, and in particular, on cross-border collaboration.
  • A training course aimed to support engagement in copyright advocacy;
  • The building of a network of authors focused on maximising access and sympathetic to the needs of researchers, educators and the libraries that support them.

KR21 reports are all published under Creative Commons licences, and so are available to the wider world. We have also organised webinars around each one, in order to ensure that they can be understood, and their potential realised, globally.

At the end of 2023, we had a National Coordinator network covering Ireland, the UK, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, France, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Moldova and Slovenia (and the Western Balkans). They are tasked with finding the optimal way to mobilise networks of librarians and others within their countries, as well as carrying out advocacy work in favour of public benefit reforms. We have supported them to carry out additional activities, such as conferences in Poland and the UK, research in Italy and Spain, and training in Slovenia.

National coordinators have had some notable successes, including for example:

  • Integrating provisions allowing for more rapid circumvention of technological protection measures that prevent the enjoyment of exceptions and limitations in Slovenia and Bulgaria;
  • Introducing a secondary publication right in Bulgaria;
  • Leading the way in ensuring that the value of text and data mining for research is recognised in the UK;
  • Building public awareness of the weaknesses of the copyright framework for eBooks and research in general in the Netherlands;
  • Mobilising the library community around secure digital lending in Poland;

In the context of its engagement in Brussels, the Programme has continued to build relationships. It has worked extensively around initiatives exploring the impacts of copyright and other laws on access to publicly funded research and research in general. KR21 outputs have been cited in relevant documents, and it has played an active role in relevant consultations and other activities. It will continue to focus on relationships in the light of the European Parliament elections in 2024.

In 2023, to support its work, the Programme took on a Programme Management Assistant.