Copyright and Scholarly Communications Librarian

Location: This is a hybrid role, with a minimum 40% of working time onsite at South Kensington Campus

Job Summary

As the Copyright and Scholarly Communications Librarian you will proactively lead copyright literacy advice, teaching and training aimed at academic, teaching and research staff, and for students at all levels.

Understanding individual rights in academic work, encouraging the creation of open access publications and educational resources, and promoting open research practice are all critical and emerging areas in scholarly communications, and you will provide expertise and advice across all these. This will include raising awareness of rights retention strategies, and the role of copyright and licensing in the ethical use of information sources in academic work.

There will be opportunity to develop and expand on existing and new areas of advice and guidance, such as:

• the impact of generative AI and machine learning on licensing in scholarly communications
• copyright management and licensing for open access monographs and educational resources
• the ethical use of 3^rd party information sources in scholarly communication
• understanding the implications of copyright and licensing of academic work in open research practice 

Duties and responsibilities 

You will be responsible for the delivery and advocacy of the Library Services copyright and scholarly licensing service, implementing strategies to promote copyright literacy across the university. You will want to actively address inequities in scholarly communications and access to learning and research material.

You will:

• deliver a copyright and licensing advisory service for staff and all students across the university
• raise awareness and understanding of copyright literacy, and best practice in ethical copyright management and assignment
• work with colleagues within the Library Services and the Central Secretariat to advise on, promote and ensure compliance with copyright licensing agreements and relevant legislation
• maintain and develop the copyright and licensing advice pages on the Library Services website to include relevant content relating to open access publishing, and open licensing
• design, develop, and deliver copyright literacy teaching and training programmes to academic staff and students, including copyright issues encountered in the creation and use of scholarly works
• support the open access publishing workflow, by raising awareness of and providing advice on scholarly licensing
• raise awareness of how copyright and open licensing might affect initiatives impacting upon researchers, especially in relation to the scholarly communications landscape 

Essential requirements

You will have knowledge of UK copyright legislation, and of licensing and rights issues connected to the creation of and access to digital content and for teaching resource preparation and understand copyright licensing schemes such as Creative Commons.

You will be able to analyse complex problems and communicate appropriate solutions to a range of audiences. You should have good advocacy and influencing skills.

Your experience should include:

• working in an appropriate information and education sector, which could have been in a library, knowledge management, publishing or legal contracts environment
• providing service delivery to staff and/or students in an academic setting, preferably in the higher education sector
• development of and delivering training materials and courses

Further Information

This is a full-time, open-ended post. 

Further information about salary, terms & conditions and contract type/duration can be found on our web pages.

Should you require any further details on the role please contact: Ruth Harrison – r.e.harrison@imperial.ac.uk

Closes: 7th May 2024

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