Research topics - Adrienne Muir

Dr Adrienne Muir

Information policy

Information policy making may be at the organisational, local, national or international level. Policy makers are concerned with facilitating and/or regulating the flow of information. Organisational information policies govern the creation, dissemination, management and use of organisational information. These policies will be informed by policy and regulation at a regional, national or international level. National information policies include intellectual property rights, data protection and media regulation. Information policies can be aimed at improving access to information or restricting access. Increasing globalisation and improving information and communication technologies can provide opportunities, but can also be threatening to citizens and countries. In some cases, information law cannot keep up with technological developments. Different jurisdictions may take different approaches to information policy making and an increasingly dynamic information environment may require new ways of developing information policies. There is scope for examining issues in different countries with a view to making recommendations to policy makers. Research in this area could also be theoretical, perhaps involving new models or typologies for thinking about information policy.

Digital collection management

Information is increasingly made available in digital form. Managing digital information collections in knowledge organisations such as libraries, information services, archives and museums and repositories and organisations in general presents many challenges. Existing paradigms for organisation information into packages may not longer be relevant, established policy and procedures may need to be altered, existing skills may no longer be sufficient or appropriate for digital collections. The concept of a collection may need to be re-conceptualised in the digital environment and the current and future roles of the various information chain players could be investigated.

Preservation management

Preservation is a management process with the aim of keeping information available and accessible as long as it is needed. While, there are established procedures and practices for preserving information in traditional forms, there are gaps in knowledge. The preservation of digital information is an emerging discipline. While there are many technical challenges, some of the greatest issues are political, economic, legal and managerial. Digital curation is an emerging concept covering the lifecycle of digital data and digital information. Digital technologies increasingly allow information to be created automatically, facilitate cooperative working, often on an international level. The output of these processes needs to be managed and partnerships need to be formed between the creators, curators and users of this output. Records of activates in public and private sector organisations are increasing created, stored, preserved and accessed in digital forms.

Reproduction Rights Organisations

Copyright law affords creators certain exclusive rights over their creative output. Reproduction rights organisations have been created to help rights holders to collectively licence use of and commercially exploit their intellectual property. RROs exist in many jurisdictions and often there are different agencies in each jurisdiction dealing with different types of intellectual property, for example for authors and publishers, designers, artists and musicians. Whilst there is some cooperation between national RROs and on an international basis, this separation reflects legislative frameworks in that there are different regulations for different types on intellectual property and different actors, for example writers, performers and publishers. However, the world is changing and legislators, policy makers, creative industries and individuals are struggling to cope with developments in a global digital economy, which makes it easier for digital content to be created, shared and used in new ways, often by-passing existing compliance regimes and collecting schemes. This research should explore all these issues and take an international perspective on the current and future roles of RROs in the global digital economy.