ABSTRACT
Librarians have a pivotal role to play in the implementation of copyright legislation. By the very nature of their work they are placed between on the one hand the authors, publishers and other copyright owners who quite rightly are keen to obtain a fair economic return on their intellectual property whilst on the other hand they deal directly with the readers of copyright works. Library and information professionals therefore have a key role in both controlling and facilitating access to information, and as such they also have to be able to explain to their users what levels of copying are permissible under copyright legislation.
