Digital Rights for Digitally Literate Citizens

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show that digital literacy should be understood in a much broader sense than is the case now, and that its full achievement is impossible if new digital rights are not introduced in society and understood and accepted by citizens. To prove their presumption that little is known about digital rights even among students, the authors conducted small-scale research among LIS and non-LIS students at two different universities in Croatia - the University of Zagreb and the University of Dubrovnik. On the basis of the findings, the authors concluded that LIS educators and librarians have special responsibilities as regards digital rights: educators should reformulate study programmes and incorporate the topic of digital rights, while librarians should strive to speak for their users and incorporate users' rights into library legislation. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013.