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New initiatives help faculty use copyrights effectively
As the proliferation of electronic publishing media makes scholarly work more accessible for research and classroom purposes, it also raises new and critical issues of author rights and the proper use of copyrighted materials. The Library is involved in several initiatives aimed at keeping Northwestern faculty and graduate students informed about the complex legal issues now surrounding scholarly publication, and about effective strategies for maintaining their rights.
Two recent documents offer faculty and graduate students easy tools for using copyrighted materials and retaining more rights when publishing scholarly articles. First, a new web site and brochure from the Association of Research Libraries, Know Your Copy Rights, gives tips on what you can and can't do when using print, media, and web resources in class teaching, electronic reserves, and linking to web sites. We hope to distribute this brochure soon to all Northwestern faculty.
Second, the 12-university consortium CIC (Committee on Institutional Cooperation) has developed an "Author Addendum,” which is under review across CIC campus faculties, and has just been endorsed by Northwestern’s University Library committee. Author addenda are a newly emerging approach, a short legal instrument that authors may use to modify their publisher agreements, enabling them to keep selected key rights to their articles.
For more information and resources on author rights in the shifting environment of scholarly and electronic publishing, see the SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) web site, or contact Charlotte Cubbage, Bibliographer, c-cubbage@northwestern.edu, x1-2919; or Claire Stewart, Acting Head, Marjorie I. Mitchell Multimedia Center and Coordinator of Digitization Projects, claire-stewart@northwestern.edu.