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The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a multinational survey on copyright literacy of specialists from libraries and other cultural institutions.

This paper is based on a multinational survey of copyright literacy competencies of Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals and those who work in the cultural heritage sector (archives and museums), conducted in 13 countries, namely Bulgaria (BG), Croatia (CR), Finland (FI), France (FR), Hungary (HU), Lithuania (LT), Mexico (MX), Norway (NO), Portugal (PT), Romania (RO), Turkey (TR), UK and USA in the period July 2013-March 2015. An online survey instrument was developed in order to collect data from professionals regarding their familiarity with, knowledge and awareness of, and opinions on copyright-related issues.

Findings of this study highlight gaps in existing knowledge of copyright, and information about the level of copyright literacy of LIS and cultural sector professionals. Also attitudes toward copyright learning content in academic education and continuing professional development training programs are investigated.

This study aimed to address a gap in the literature by encompassing specialists from the cultural institutions in an international comparative context. The paper offers guidance for further understanding of copyright in a wider framework of digital and information literacy; and for the implementation of copyright policy, and the establishment of copyright advisor positions in cultural institutions. The recommendations support a revision of academic and continuing education programs learning curriculum and methods.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the findings of a survey of Bulgarian faculty about the extent to which their research is openly available, awareness of the European Union Competitiveness Council open access goal, support for the goal and preferences for achieving it.

The authors conducted a survey of 584 faculty at six universities in Bulgaria using the Qualtrics online survey software. There were 222 effectively surveyed respondents.

Bulgarian researchers are aware of arguments in favor of open access and believe that it benefits researchers in their discipline. Only a little more than a third of Bulgarian faculty are familiar with the E.U. goal of open access to all publicly-funded research by 2020. Once the goal is explained, they support it. Authors may not understand the intricacies of green and gold open access, but they are willing to meet the E.U. goal by either publishing in open access journals (the gold method) or depositing articles in open access repositories (the green method).

The results are useful to countries and funding agencies interested in achieving open access to state funded research.

To date, there has been no research that seeks to determine the degree to which researchers are aware of the E.U. Competitiveness Council’s goal or that seeks to determine faculty preferences for achieving that goal. This paper explores methods available for achieving open access to the results of publicly funded research in Bulgaria.

Surveying authors at doctoral-granting institutions of higher education in Portugal, the authors in this paper aim to seek to determine the extent to which Portuguese researchers prefer that their work appears in open access journals or open access repositories resulting in improved access to quality, peer-reviewed scientific information and faster scientific and technological advances. The authors also seek to gauge Portuguese author's familiarity with open access, the importance they attach to open access when choosing a publication outlet, and to determine their preferences for achieving open access.

The methodology adopted in this research is the case study. The case study intends to understand a complex social phenomenon through an in-depth study holistically. In May 2020, the authors distributed a survey to faculty in all academic ranks at 14 Portuguese higher education institutions to learn the extent to which Portuguese authors currently make their research openly available, ascertain their awareness of open access, their support of the European Union (EU) open access goal and their preferences for achieving open access.

Researchers at Portuguese universities overwhelmingly are aware of arguments in favor of open access and believe that open access benefits researchers in their fields. Portuguese researchers regularly publish in open access journals and deposit their papers in institutional or disciplinary repositories.

16.7% of 740 potential respondents completed the survey. The relatively low response rate prevents extrapolations from being made to the universe. The study was implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, which, due to the disruption created in all sectors, made data collection complex and delayed its subsequent treatment.

Similar studies have been conducted at individual universities and in particular disciplines to determine the degree to which their faculty authors are aware of open access, its benefits, and preferences for achieving it. A similar study of Bulgarian university authors was conducted in 2018. No previous study of Portuguese authors at institutions of higher education has been conducted. The results will be useful to Portuguese institutions of higher education and academic libraries to establish and revise open access outreach and implementation services that may be helpful to their faculty in meeting EU open access and funder open access requirements.

The purpose of the paper is to provide a comparative retrospective analysis of Bulgarian, Turkish and Croatian Open Access (OA) journals added in Directory of Open Access journals (DOAJ) in the period 2002-2013.

First of all, the study is focussed on brief review of definitions and descriptions of the OA as a global movement. In the study were analyzed the three main OA initiatives and was shown the difference between Golden Road and Green Road. Second of all, the authors used the comparative approach and made a comparative study of the OA journals in Bulgaria, Turkey and Croatia and present the evaluation results and findings.

Qualitative and quantitative data for the study are collected by the DOAJ. The data are analyzed in terms of quantity and period, and the results are presented graphically and tabular and finally there are made major specific conclusions and recommendations.

The paper shows that OA in the digital space has an important position in scientific research. There are many discussion issues related to the problems of OA, but overall study of OA to scientific information, and in particular comparative study of Bulgarian, Turkish and Croatian journals in the DOAJ does not exist at the moment.