In a First, Oregon State University Library Faculty Adopts Strong OA Policy
Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 03/25/2009
| Go back to the Academic Newswire for more stories |
- Mandate follows Harvard's lead
- First for library faculty
- Waiver can be requested
(This article first appeared in the March 24 issue of the LJ Academic Newswire.)
They say change starts at home. On March 13, the library faculty at Oregon State University (OSU) announced the school has adopted its own, Harvard-like Open Access (OA) mandate, the first in the nation for a library faculty.
Under the policy, library faculty members are now required to give an electronic copy of “the final published version of the work,” in an appropriate format (such as PDF), to be made available in the libraries’ institutional repository, ScholarsArchive@OSU. OSU librarian Karyle Butcher told the LJ Academic Newswire that she was proud that OSU faculty “took this path and made the informed decision to walk the talk.”
Strong policy
Specifically, the policy—passed unanimously—requires library faculty members to “grant to the OSU Libraries permission to make our scholarly work publicly available and to exercise the copyright in those works.” The OSU library mandate, grants the OSU Libraries “a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license” to exercise copyrights “in any medium” (not just on the web), and authorizes others “to do the same, provided that the works are properly attributed to the authors and not sold for a profit.”
The new policy applies to 42 library faculty members and to all scholarly works authored or co-authored while a faculty member of the University Libraries, beginning with works created after March 2009. Like with the Harvard mandate, library faculty can receive a waiver from the “University Librarian or the University Librarian’s designate” upon written request. When a waiver is granted, “faculty members are encouraged to deposit whatever version of the article the publisher allows no later than the date of publication or distribution.”
Walking the talk
OSU Associate University Librairan Faye Chadwell said librarians did indeed want to "walk the walk" with their policy. A component of our scholarly communication program focuses on authors’ rights," she added. "My library colleagues and I felt strongly that we as authors should not expect our OSU colleagues to do the right thing where their copyright transfer was concerned if we weren’t willing to do so ourselves. We saw an opportunity to set a model for the rest of the campus."
On his open access blog, Peter Suber praised the OSU Library Faculty Association (LFA) for adopting “strong” policy. “I applaud the mandatory language, the dual deposit-release strategy (or what Stevan Harnad calls immediate deposit / optional access), and the clarity in making waivers apply only to OA rather than both OA and deposits, Suber wrote. “Now that the library faculty have taken the lead, I hope we’ll see other departments and divisions of OSU, already operating under a policy to encourage self-archiving, strengthen their policy as well.”
Read more Newswire stories:
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On the Web, LJ's Movers & Shakers Spawns an Alter-Ego: Shovers and Makers
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