Memo
 

To:  Faculty Senate

From:  Gloriana St. Clair, University Librarian

Date:  April 7, 1999

Subject:  Preserving the Faculty's Rights under Copyright
 

     One of the initiatives adopted under Strategic Plan is to preserve faculty and university interests in copyright.  Here are some concerns:
 

• On Tuesday, I received a call asking me to give permission to have a short work of mine mounted on the Web to support a new model for scholarly communications.  Nothing would have given me greater pleasure and satisfaction than to have my work used in this important way.  However, I could not give that permission because I had signed away the copyright to JAI Press, which has recently been purchased by the Elsevier Company.  The new model has the potential to reduce Elsevier's 40-55% profits. California Institute of Technology decided not to risk mounting the work.

• Faculty cannot routinely mount their articles on their web pages or pass out photocopies of their own articles to their classes without requesting permission of the publisher.  Publishers often require a fee-sometimes as much as $20 - $50 per copy.

• Faculty cannot use their published work in creating new instructional initiatives, such as distance education courses and supporting web sites.

• Serials prices increase about 12% a year.  The University generously gives the Libraries 6% to offset inflation, but faculty and students still have 6% fewer journals every year to use in teaching and research.

     Here are some initiatives that have been undertaken at other Universities:

1. Educating faculty about the importance of preserving rights (several universities have seminars, intellectual property days, forensics, and web pages, see Stanford's copyright page and the scholarly communication page at the Association of Research Libraries).
2. Passing a resolution in the faculty senate to encourage authors to retain copyright. (North Carolina State, 1995)
3. Adopting a statement on the reservation of rights. (Draft, Hopkins, 1999)
4. Joining in Kansas Provost David Shulenburger's NEAR proposal, which would retain a portion of copyright in a single publicly accessible electronic repository for articles 90 days after they appear in print.
5. Transforming scholarly communications by encouraging learned societies to create electronic journals that provide the same high level of refereeing and have the results mounted on the Web.  (300 such refereed journals already exist).  Carnegie Mellon's Universal Library Project and University Libraries have committed to support two journals on campus already and to maintain them electronically into the future.

     At a recent President's Council meeting, Paul Karol and other faculty encouraged me to use the Senate as a forum for discussing these issues with faculty.