April 26th is World Intellectual Property Day and is celebrated around the world. Launched by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2000 the day was created to raise awareness about how intellectual property like patents, trademarks and copyright are both used and in turn foster creativity.  This year’s theme is Digital Creativity: Culture Reimagined.

Universities are both creators of intellectual property through faculty, instructor, researcher and student output, but are also consumers of intellectual property. Toronto Metropolitan University Library and Archives spends millions of dollars per year on book and digital journal subscription purchasing. Most of these on-line journal articles are not publicly available to those outside of a university environment without a fee. At universities we are digitally privileged because we pay a substantial amount yearly for access to this content.

The purchases universities make support publishers and at the same time give instructors, researchers and students timely access to the latest scholarly information that can be used in their courses and for their research. Ryerson researchers are also part of the creative cycle as they create and publish new works citing the work that has gone before them.

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World Intellectual Property Day
WIPO