In honour of World Book and Copyright Day, we caught up with Senior Librarian Natasha Edwards to talk about the importance of copyright compliance, and how her role has her interacting with staff and students from across the University.

What is your role here at Flinders?

I’m the Senior Librarian (Copyright and Communication), also known as Copyright Librarian, a position based in Central Library that manages copyright compliance throughout the University. This involves giving guidance to staff and students on the appropriate use of copyright materials. This goes beyond academic integrity in making sure we are consulting and/or compensating artists and creators appropriately for activities such as compiling teaching resources, publishing research, and using music and films for events.

There is also a communications aspect to my role where I coordinate our Library social media accounts, webpage content, and promote our services and resources throughout the year.

Tell us a little about your journey to Flinders.

It all begun with an aptitude test given to me by the careers counsellor in high school (have I gone too far back?), the results of which indicated I would be optimally suited to becoming a librarian.

Fast forward several years and I completed a postgraduate library qualification (yes, there’s a degree for that) which allowed me to get started working in university libraries.

At the beginning of my career, I was often working on short-term opportunities and rotating through various roles while backfilling other staff on leave. This allowed me to try a variety of library work including getting experience in copyright, which is what has led me to this role at Flinders.

What is one thing people might not know about you?

I studied abroad for one semester during my bachelor’s degree. I was 19 years old and had never been overseas before, so I decided I needed to get some life experience and went to the USA for five months. Minnesota is a notoriously snowy state (a.k.a. Minnesnowta) and it turned out to be one of the coldest winters on record, so it was a big shock for a girl who had only experienced Adelaide’s climate! It was great to experience for myself what it is like to be an international student and it’s a perspective I value now that I work in university.

What do you love most about your role?

My role gives me an opportunity to speak to so many different people and get exposure to what they’re doing in their jobs. For starters, the library does so much different work that people don’t necessarily associate with libraries; we have seven teams and I feel privileged to have a job that allows me to interact with all of them.

I love that on one day I can be helping a student get a licence to screen a film for their club, and the next day I could be talking to a researcher about their project to find copyright friendly images they can use. It really is fascinating to be a part of the myriad of activities that go on in a place like this.

Who would be at your dream dinner party? And what would you be eating?

I’d love a big family reunion with all the family members who were around when I was a kid along with the ones who visited from other countries at different points in time – it would be amazing just to have everyone together at once.

Everyone would bring their signature dish and then dessert would be ice cream. I recently picked up a secondhand ice cream machine and have been experimenting with different flavours and learning about various chemical reactions involved in producing the perfect scoop, so that would be my contribution.