46.2 "UNIVERSITY POLICY REGARDING FACULTY PUBLICATION IN SCHOLARLY JOURNALS," Triangle Research Libraries Network
Marcia Tuttle, tuttle@gibbs.oit.unc.edu, or TUTTLE@UNC.BITNET.
This issue of the newsletter is given entirely to posting the second draft of a model copyright statement developed by librarians, faculty members, and a publisher at Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Triangle Research Libraries Network). It is reproduced here in an effort to generate discussion, pro and con, from newsletter readers. I will repost all relevant messages in a future newsletter, so I hope you will either send me your response or copy me on messages to Gary Byrd.
46.2 "UNIVERSITY POLICY REGARDING FACULTY PUBLICATION IN SCHOLARLY JOURNALS"
Triangle Research Libraries Network.
June 16, 1992
Dear Colleague:
The attached second draft of a model "University Policy Regarding Faculty Publication in Scholarly Journals" was prepared by a joint committee of faculty, librarians and university press editors from Duke University, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This is still a working document and we invite feedback. It incorporates many suggestions and corrections received from faculty, librarians, and administrators on our three campuses. The vast majority of the responses from the distribution of the first draft have been positive and strongly supportive of the policy.
This effort is part of a two-year project of the Triangle Research Libraries Network to develop strategies and plans for cooperative information resources development in the sciences and engineering. Grant support for the project has been provided by the Council on Library Resources in Washington, D.C.
The distribution of this draft policy document is intended to stimulate a process of debate and consensus building among faculty, librarians, university administrators, and scholarly publishers throughout the United States and abroad. It is not our intention that such a policy be adoped unilaterally by any one institution. Rather we believe that the eventual widespread adoption of such a policy would help to reduce or eliminate the current barriers to the effective dissemination of new research, especially in science and engineering scholarly journals.
University research library collections have traditionally served as the primary mechanism for the dissemination of new research results to faculty and graduate students. However, the cost and number of scholarly journals continue to increase at astonishing rates, far outstripping the ability of academic budgets to keep pace. A growing percentage of these journals are published by private (often international) corporations earning substantial profits from the subscriptions purchased mostly by research libraries. University libraries have been forced to cancel subscriptions by the thousands, and no relief to this trend is in sight.
This policy proposes a fairly fundamental change in the current practice whereby faculty freely transfer the copyrights on their articles to publishers. As pointed out in a recent discussion of scholarly publishing in _The Chronicle of Higher Education_, (Scott Bennett and Nina Matheson "Scholarly articles: valuable commodities for universities," _The Chronicle of Higher Education_, May 27, 1992, pp. B1-B3.) only the copyright owner can decide whether scholarly publications are treated primarily as knowledge to be shared or as a commodity to be sold for a profit. In trade and mass market publishing, authors (recognizing the economic value of their intellectual property) transfer limited ownership rights to publishers for royalties. In scholarly journal publishing, by contrast, authors "make a contribution" to scholarship by freely assigning their ownership rights to publishers. The irony here is that university libraries are forced to pay spiraling subscription costs for information created and given away by university faculty whose research was supported largely by public grants.
We encourage you to study this draft policy carefully and to share and discuss it with colleagues .... We would ask only that you give credit to TRLN when and if you distribute this draft. We look forward to hearing your reactions to the document, whether they be supportive or critical. In addition to distribution here in the Research Triangle, we also intend to share the draft policy with a number of national associations of research universities, librarians, scholars in various disciplines, and scholarly publishers as a model for national debate.
Thank you in advance for your interest and support.
Sincerely,
Gary Byrd, Health Sciences Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Jerry Campbell, Perkins Library, Duke
Jerry Davis, Marine Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, NCSU
Lolly Gasaway, Law Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Joe Hewitt, Davis Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Connie McCarthy, Perkins Library, Duke
David Perry, UNC Press
Ross Whetten, Forestry, NCSU
Please address your comments and suggestions to any one of the committee members above or specifically to:
Gary Byrd, Health Sciences Library, CB #7585, UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC 27599 (Phone: 919-966-2111, FAX: 919-966-1029, email: byrdmed@med.unc.edu)
[SECOND DRAFT OF A MODEL POLICY: JUNE 1992]
University Policy regarding Faculty Publication in Scholarly Journals
Preamble
The Constitutional purpose of copyright is "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts." By granting "for limited times to authors and inventors the rights to their respective writings and discoveries," US copyright legislation has had the complementary purposes of protecting the intellectual property of authors and promoting widespread access to useful information. The following policy addresses the need to maintain a balance between scholars' rights as authors and the fundamental mission of the university to promote the free exchange of ideas and research results.
The Policy
Faculty employees of this university should retain copyright in the results of their university research and other scholarly activities when these are published in scholarly journals. As a non-profit institution dependent largely on government and foundation grants to support its research activities, this university encourages faculty to use publication channels that provide access to scholarly information at the lowest cost for the benefit of the largest number of other researchers, students, and interested citizens. This policy is limited to the publication of articles reporting new research in scholarly journals rather than reviews of the literature, monographs, and textbooks. Faculty retention of copyright to their journal articles will help to insure that research scholars and their universities maintain the right to share this information, as appropriate, with colleagues, students and the public at large using existing and emerging print and electronic technologies. Current copyright law specifically gives the owner the right to reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative versions, and to perform or display articles or other works.
As a alternative to signing journal publishers' copyright transfer agreements that require complete transfer of rights, faculty of this university should exercise one of the following options: 1) return the publisher's form unsigned with a copy of this university policy statement; 2) make modifications to the publisher's copyright transfer agreement form in line with the model "Authorization to Publish" form below; or 3) substitute the model "Authorization to Publish" form along with a copy of this university policy statement. Faculty should carefully study any agreement form provided to them by journal publishers to insure the form does not require the author to assign copyright to the publisher, and to determine which of the options above will best protect their rights.
Model "Authorization to Publish" Form
A major mission of _________________________________ (name of the university) is to provide for the creation and dissemination of new knowledge. To promote the widest possible dissemination of research results, the faculty employees of this University retain copyright in all works produced in the exercise of their official duties.
AUTHORIZATION TO PUBLISH
___________________________________________________________________________
[hereinafter called the Author(s)] grant to
___________________________________________________________________________
[hereinafter called the Publisher] the right to publish the article
provisionally entitled ____________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
[hereinafter called the Article] in the following print/electronic journal:
__________________________________________________________________________.
This authorization does not transfer to the Publisher copyright in the Article, nor the right to grant or deny permission for the reproduction of the Article in other forms, with the exception of limited reproduction by indexing and abstracting services. This Authorization takes effect only upon the acceptance by the Publisher of the Article for publication; if the Article is not accepted, no authorization of the Publisher shall have been made.
The Author(s) retain(s) all title, interest, and rights in the Article, including but not limited to the right to grant or deny permission for reproduction of the Article, the right to use material from the Article in subsequent works, the right to distribute the Article by electronic means, the right to display the work publicly, the right to procure registration of copyright, and the right to secure copyright in any other country.
WARRANTIES
The Author(s) warrant(s) that he/she/they is/are the sole author(s) and proprietor(s) of the Article, that the Article does not contain any libelous or unlawful material, that it does not infringe upon the rights of others, and that its contents are original to the Author(s) and have not been submitted for publication in another journal. If the Article contains significant excerpts from other copyrighted materials, the Author(s) warrant(s) that written permission from the copyright holder has been obtained and proper credit has been given in the Article.
The following notice shall appear, as a condition of publication of the Article, as a footnote on the first page of the Article as distributed by the Publisher:
"Copyright to this work is retained by the author(s). Permission is
granted for the noncommercial reproduction of the complete work for
educational and research purposes, and for the use of figures, tables
and short quotes from this work in other books or journals, provided
the full bibliographic citation is given to the original source of the
material. Reproduction of the work for resale requires the permission
of the copyright holder."
Date: ________________________
Signature(s) of Author(s): _____________________________________
Name(s) of Author(s): __________________________________________
----------
Appendix
Advice to Authors: The following guidelines are intended to aid faculty in choosing the most appropriate scholarly journal publisher and in negotiating licensing agreements with publishers which insure the widest possible dissemination of their scholarship and research results.
1) Choosing a scholarly journal publisher and submitting an article for publication:
-- In evaluating any potential journal for the publication of an original article, faculty should consider the publisher's policy regarding the reproduction of articles for education or scholarly purposes by students, faculty, and libraries.
-- Publication via a public online computer network is encouraged when this alternative is available.
-- Although not required to protect copyright, faculty should never submit an article for publication to a scholarly journal without including a "no- tice of copyright" statement on the title page (e.g.: (c) John Q. Faculty 1992).
2) The rights that authors retain by not transferring copyright to their scholarly journal articles include:
-- The right to reproduce the work or to exclude others from reproducing the work.
-- The right to distribute the work by sale, rental, lease, or lending.
-- The right to prepare derivative works (such as translations, new edi- tions, abridgements, etc.) of the work.
-- The right to "perform" the work publicly in person or through the mass media.
-- The right to display the work publicly through new technological methods that do not amount to a performance or actual reproduction.
3) The responsibilities authors assume by not transferring copyright to their scholarly journal articles include:
-- The responsibility to seek not only the most prestigious journals for publication of articles, but also those which will assure their widespread availability to other scholars and students at a reasonable cost.
-- The responsibility to learn more about our current system of scholarly communication through journals and the role copyright plays in this system.
-- The responsibility to participate actively in campus, national, and international committees, discussion groups, and forums where changes in our current system of scholarly communication are being debated.
-- The responsibility to respond promptly to requests to reproduce and resell the article for educational purposes (noncommercial reproduction would be automatically permitted by the notice printed or electronically displayed on the first page of the article).
The NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES (ISSN: 1046-3410) is published by the editor through the Office of Information Technology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as news is available. Editor: Marcia Tuttle, BITNET: TUTTLE@UNC.BITNET; Internet: tuttle@gibbs.oit.unc.edu; Paper mail: Serials Department, CB #3938 Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC 27599-3938; Telephone: 919 962- 1067; FAX: 919 962-0484. Editorial Board: Deana Astle (Clemson University), Jerry Curtis (Springer Verlag New York), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State University), James Mouw (University of Chicago), and Heather Steele (Blackwell's Periodicals Division). The Newsletter is available on BITNET/Internet and Blackwell's CONNECT. EBSCO and Readmore Academic customers may receive the Newsletter in paper format from these companies. Back issues of the Newsletter are available electronically free of charge through electronic mail from the editor. To subscribe (or unsubscribe to the newsletter, send a message to LISTSERV@GIBBS.OIT.UNC.EDU saying SUBSCRIBE PRICES-L [YOUR NAME]. Be sure to send that message to the listserver and not to Prices-l. You must include your name. To unsubscribe, send a message _from the e-mail address by which you are subscribed_ to the listserver, saying UNSUBSCRIBE PRICES-L. We regret that this version of the listserver software does not permit a subscriber to "SET NOMAIL"; you must unsubscribe and resubscribe. If you have problems, please contact the editor.