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Against the Grain Volume 20 | Issue 3 Article 21 June 2008 From the University Presses -- On the Author's Addendum Sanford G. Thatcher Penn State Press, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Thatcher, Sanford G. (2008) "From the University Presses -- On the Author's Addendum," Against the Grain: Vol. 20: Iss. 3, Article 21. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.2413 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. From the University Presses — On the Author’s Addendum Column Editor: Sanford G. Thatcher (Director, Penn State Press, USB 1, Suite C, 820 N. University Drive, University Park, PA 16802-1003; Phone: 814-865-1327; Fax: 814-863-1408) <[email protected]> www.psupress.org t has long been a tradition in scholarly turn in 2005 when a number of initiatives began to deposit publishing for authors to transfer all rights to coalesce around the idea of encouraging or them into Ito the publishers of their articles and even even requiring faculty to retain certain rights any disci- their books. The reason is simple: academic when they sign contracts with publishers. The pline-based authors do not live on the income generated by question to be asked is whether the use of an r e s e a r c h their scholarly publications, if they generate author’s addendum, at least as now formulated, repository any income at all, and with much else to absorb is truly in the best interest of higher education, (including their attention, they have not been motivated all things considered. And, in particular, what P u b M e d to bother about dealing with all the small mat- is the likely effect of this new practice going C e n t r a l , ters of business that are connected with the to be on university presses? the Nation- myriad of rights that fall within copyright, al Library such as responding to requests for permission How the Author’s Addendum of Medicine’s database for NIH-funded to reproduce an article in a coursepack, to Was Developed manuscripts).” (http://info-libraries.mit.edu/ quote a passage that is lengthy enough not to As it often has been in the arena of scholarly scholarly/mit-copyright-amendment-form). be covered by “fair use,” and to deal with for- communication, the University of California The reference to the NIH here is an acknowl- eign publishers seeking translation rights, just was among the pioneers in this effort. Its Aca- edgment that much of the impetus for the move to name a few. Nor are authors familiar with demic Senate appointed a Special Committee to devise and implement an author’s addendum the procedures for registering their copyrights, on Scholarly Communication, which produced came from the fierce struggle over the legisla- and few want to take the time to learn. Hence a number of white papers in December 2005. tion to mandate deposit of articles supported scholarly publishers have come to assume the (http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/sen- by NIH funding into PubMed Central and the role of serving as the author’s agent for these ate/committees/scsc/reports.html). One paper even broader open-access proposal embedded purposes, and they have professional staff proposed that all faculty, in signing contracts, in the Federal Research Public Access Act trained to know what normal business practices “transfer to publishers only the right of first of 2006. are and what rates to charge for various kinds publication, or at a minimum, retain rights Strong support for FRPAA, as publicly of uses. This tradition contrasts sharply with that allow postprint archiving and subsequent voiced in an open letter from the provosts of another tradition that exists in trade publishing, non-profit use.” It also urged that “faculty shall the Committee on Institutional Cooperation where most authors are represented by literary routinely grant to the Regents of the University (the Big Ten plus Chicago) in July 2006, car- agents who have the knowledge equivalent to of California a limited, irrevocable, perpetual, ried over to the CIC provosts’ endorsement that of trained publishing staff and can act on worldwide, non-exclusive license to place the later in 2006 of its own version of the author’s the author’s behalf in negotiating the sale of faculty member’s scholarly work in a non-com- addendum, which was very similar to MIT’s subsidiary rights. The difference, of course, mercial open-access repository for purposes form in retaining certain nonexclusive rights is that many trade-book authors do live on of online dissemination and preservation on for authors to make use of their works in their the income from their writing, including the behalf of the author and the public.” This pro- teaching and research activities and to post potentially large income that can come from posal was later slightly modified to define the them on their personal Websites, their own successful sales of book club, movie, TV, “scholarly work” affected by the policy as that institutional repositories, and any disciplinary audio, and foreign translation rights. “published in a scholarly journal or conference or funding agency sites connected with their Owing to the perceived “serials crisis” proceedings.” Also added was this provision: research (http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/groups/ that librarians became concerned about as far “Faculty may opt out of this requirement for CICMembers/archive/Report/AuthorsRights. back as the late 1960s when the first serious any specific work or invoke a specified delay shtml). The major difference is that the CIC studies of the impact of journal price increases before such work appears in an open-access addendum specifies a delay of six months after (especially in STM fields) on library budgets repository.” The Academic Senate’s Assembly publication before any posting of the “final were undertaken, however, there has been endorsed this proposal as thus modified on May published version” of the article to a publicly a growing movement fueled primarily by 10, 2006. Feedback received from the vari- accessible site. As of March 17, 2008, faculty libraries’ budget problems to “take back the ous UC system campuses over the following senates at nine of the twelve CIC universities copyrights.” As the standard argument goes, month, however, revealed a strong preference had officially endorsed use of the addendum, scholars produce the intellectual property for an opt-in approach instead of the opt-out which in the CIC version is entirely voluntary, embedded in their articles, then give it away mechanism included in the original proposal. not mandated by any opt-out approach. By far to publishers, who in turn charge increasingly And a survey of over 1,100 UC faculty released the most thorough discussion of the author’s steep prices to libraries to buy it back. Since in August 2007 showed that, for most faculty, addendum and the problems it is meant to scholars also provide peer review at no charge there was a disconnect between their attitudes address is provided on the Website of the to publishers, the perception is that the publish- and their behavior, with many expressing con- University of Wisconsin’s library, which ers’ business is being partially subsidized in cern about changes in the system of scholarly established an Office of Scholarly Communica- this way by university faculty, allowing them communication but most acting as they always tion and Publishing following a faculty senate to generate even higher profit margins than have with respect to their publishers and not resolution in 2005 to help educate faculty about they would otherwise be able to achieve. With believing it to be their problem but someone issues in scholarly communication (http://www. their backs to the wall, librarians have fought else’s (http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/re- library.wisc.edu/scp). back, principally through their associations, to sponses/activities.html). lobby for changes in copyright law and, more The MIT library also was an early pioneer Other major promoters of the author’s recently, to educate faculty to manage their and in January 2006 released its Copyright addendum have been the Association of own intellectual property more responsibly in Amendment Form, which “enables authors to College and Research Libraries through its the best interest of higher education as a whole, continue using their publications in their aca- Scholarly Communication Toolkit, SPARC, as they see it. This long struggle took a new demic work; to deposit them into DSpace; and continued on page 67 66 Against the Grain / June 2008 <http://www.against-the-grain.com> From the University Presses from page 66 and Science Commons, the latter an off- shoot of Creative Commons that focuses particularly on the needs of scientific com- munication. ACRL provides information in its Toolkit about the background of the crisis in scholarly communication, recent changes in 1]c\bS` the system including the “big deal” approach of commercial publishers to selling journal OaaSaa[S\bb]]Za content of which ACRL is very critical, the increasing consolidation of the industry, and [OYSWbSOagb] new alternatives for disseminating scholarship and managing copyrights (http://www.ala.org/ ]^bW[WhSbVSdOZcS ala/acrl/acrlissues/scholarlycomm/scholarly- communicationtoolkit/toolkit.cfm). With their own versions of an author’s addendum already ]TS`Sa]c`QSa developed, SPARC and Science Commons joined in a further effort in May 2007 to pro- vide new online tools “to simplify the process 1][^O`S`SacZbaPSbeSS\ of choosing and implementing an addendum RWTTS`S\b^`]dWRS`a to retain scholarly rights.” (http://www.arl.