Plagiarizing has spread among children and young people who need information swiftly and who do not want to spend time and think. The Association of Librarians of the Republic of Moldova has launched a campaign titled “No to plagiarism!” to raise awareness of the importance of observing the intellectual property rights and the ethical and correct use of information.
The direct beneficiaries of the campaign are young people aged between 12 and 18 who often visit social networking sites, while the indirect beneficiaries are school librarians and teachers. Through information sessions organized by library experts, children and young people will be taught to condemn copying and will be urged to join the information and learning campaign “No to plagiarism!”.
Contacted by IPN for a comment, management and institutional development coordinator at the Association of Librarians Victoria Vasilica said the results of the National Report “Republic of Moldova and the Program for International Student Assessment PISA 2018” were the main reason for launching such a campaign.
“The PISA National Report of 2018 generated concern about the Republic of Moldova’s results revealed in this report. Therefore, we decided to organize the campaign “No to plagiarism!” so as to raise awareness of this problem. Furthermore, we want to promote such messages as “inform yourself correctly”, “intellectual theft is also a theft”, ”plagiarism destroys thinking”. We consider these information sessions will develop critical thinking in young people. We will this way diminish plagiarism, primarily the digital one. The copy/paste practice has expanded among children and young people,” stated Victoria Vasilica.
The Association of Librarians has about 1,500 members who represent national libraries as well. Mostly school librarians will be engaged in the campaign as these have access to the target public.
The campaign will be conducted during April-May 2022. It forms part of the program of activities dedicated to the World Book and Copyright Day and the Processional Librarian’s Day. The campaign is carried out in the framework of the project “Civil Society Organizations Capacity Development” that is implemented by ERIM and is funded by the European Union.
