Traditionally, librarians have been viewed as gatekeepers (among other things). However, Librarians (for the most part) view themselves as catalysts helping patrons getting the material they want as quickly and as "painlessly" as possible. For most patrons the ideal librarian is one who can find whatever information they need quickly, easily, possibly be able to teach them how to do it themselves, and -- most importantly -- do all of this for free. Most librarians, I assert, want to be the patron's ideal librarian. So, why then are librarians gatekeepers -- shouldn't librarians be ignoring copyright all-together in order to be the ideal librarian? The answer is that most librarians don't feel as if copyright law is some moral code they must abide by; rather, most librarians are afraid their library is going to get sued. Is having one's library being sued a legitimate fear for librarians? I argue that it is not a legitimate fear. In addition, library's and librarians have come to a breaking point in regards to copyright. Library's can barely afford the high prices for copyrighted material and most librarians believe there needs to be a universal embrace of open access in order for libraries to continue providing the services they have historically provided. Librarians need to be rebellious against copyright in order to push publishers away from price-gouging and the strangle-hold they have over their content. If librarians adopt an end-to-end policy, learn to circumvent copyright law as legally as possible, and know how likely it is that their library will be sued, then librarians will finally be taking a truly proactive and rebellious stance against copyright.

 

Note: Lexis Nexis doesn't give persistent links (or else I am unable to find where they do) in order to retrieve this article simply search for "a lay perspective on the copyright wars" with only the legal box checkmarked and it will be the first result.

 

 

 

In this Lecture, Columbia University's University Librarian, James G. Neal, addresses the current environment of libraries in regards to copyright and open access. Neal's lecture mostly addresses the findings of the 108 Study Group which was formed to research copyright. Neal explains the current state of copyright, the findings of the 108 Study Group, and the framework necessary in order to facilitate a more open environment for publications and libraries. Neal's lecture defines the library as an all encompassing entity which disseminates information, a center for research, a publisher in its own right. Because of the library's role as a center for just about everything scholarly, the library has a vision of embracing legacy as well as current trends. The library is an information repository and a portal to information. Serving so many roles simultaneously makes the library at the forefront of the copyright war.

 

In my essay it will be important to state why it is the duty of the librarian to rebel against copyright in order to push for more open access. Neal helps define the library as the center of the copyright war, the very front of the action. By citing Neal and his 108 Study Group's findings, I will be able to convey the importance of the librarian to stand up against copyright in order to defend the very embodiment and idea of the library itself. Neal's article also gives information on the opninion of librarians and library organizations on the issue of copyright and open access. Using some of this information will help me to define how to faciliate a better enviornment for the sharing of intellectual materials.

 

Portal designed to aggregate material to provide training, knowledge development, and skills for the implementing of OA repositories and OA journals.

"A compendium of simple factual lists about open access (OA) to science and scholarship, maintained by the OA community at large. By bringing many OA-related lists together in one place, OAD will make it easier for users, especially newcomers, to discover them and use them for reference. The easier they are to maintain and discover, the more effectively they can spread useful, accurate information about OA." Founded by Peter Suber and Robin Peek.

From their homepage, " The Publishing Research Consortium is a group of associations and publishers, which supports global research into scholarly communication in order to enable evidence-based discussion. Our objective is to support work that is scientific and pro-scholarship. Overall, we aim to promote an understanding of the role of publishing and its impact on research and teaching." Publish whitepapers and other papers looking at peer review, open access, etc.

Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine.

An international partnership to build a large-scale public infrastructure for research information across Europe.

Research report on purchasing preferences of librarians. Identifies key factors prompting substitution of OA materials for journal subscriptions.

"The purpose of this website is for legal academics and others to share our copyright experiences with law journals and other legal publishers. As academics, we have an interest in ensuring the widest dissemination of our work. Historically, Law Journals have tended to use standard-form copyright agreements that reqire a copyright assignment, and have tended to impose unreasonable restrictions on our rights to share and re-use our own work."

Chapters from the book Open Access: Key Strategic, Technical and Economic Aspects (N. Jacobs, editor), Chandos Publishing: Oxford, 2006. Links available at eprints.org

By Charles W. Bailey, Jr. Discusses what an IR is, and looks at the relationship between IRs and the open access movement.

This is a listing of important and interesting articles, blogs, and webpages that discuss open access and copyright issues on campuses throughout the United States.

"The Office of Scholarly Communication facilitates internal partnerships among the UC libraries, faculty, and administration and, where appropriate, in concert with entities outside UC." Nice use of faculty champions/testimonials.

Compiled and written by Peter Suber. Also includes function for searching the newsletters, the OA blog and other Suber writings on OA.

Advocacy site for self-archive initiatives.

Great article on copyright and open access with a catchy metaphor to LOTR. Written by John Ober of UC Office of Scholarly Communication, from C&RL News, April 2006.

PDF of Faculty Senate Statement in support of open access.

New economic experiments and new technologies are beginning to create a greater diversity of complementary -- not competing -- avenues for the dissemination of scholarly work. Institutional repositories such as KU ScholarWorks containing supplementary materials, working papers, and pre-prints extend the options for disseminating scholarly work beyond traditional publication of peer-reviewed articles and books. Open-access journals whose costs are covered through author-fees and other non-subscription revenue are emerging alongside traditional subscription-based journals.

Open access may take the form of posting traditionally published articles (in the author's final draft version) on the Web where they are available to everyone, publishing in one of the more than a thousand open access journals, or making scholarly material openly available in a variety of other ways. Several recent studies have demonstrated that, as suspected, peer-reviewed open access journals are cited more frequently than traditional journals.

Cornell University Library scholary communication policy.

Scholarly communication refers to the formal and informal processes by which the research and scholarship of faculty, researchers, and independent scholars are created, evaluated, edited, formatted, distributed, organized, made accessible, archived, used, and transformed. In recent years the concept of scholarly communication has also begun to connote faculty collaborating with publishers, librarians, and others, in solving the grievous problem of the inability of libraries to keep up with the ever-increasing volume and cost of scholarly resources.

Text of a lecture given by Paul Royster to Library Faculty at the University of Nebraska. Found in their Digital Commons database.

Scholarly journal content is increasingly available in electronic formats, but licenses for electronic content are typically much more expensive than print subscriptions--to account for a larger potential readership. Ease and convenience of use of this content is improved dramatically, but only for those whose libraries can afford to subscribe. Additionally, the terms of the licensing may be restricted.

Scholarly Communication: Information about journal prices, copyright, open access, and more

Scholarly communication is the lifeblood of the university. The dissemination of knowledge is an imperative of land grant universities like Illinois. Anything that threatens access to, or the free flow of, research and ideas is a threat to the health of the entire system

From the dcpriniciples website. "As scholarly, not-for-profit publishers, we reaffirm our commitment to innovative and independent publishing practices and to promoting the wide dissemination of information in our journals. Not-for-profit scientific, technical, and medical publishers are an integral part of the broader scholarly communities supporting scientists, researchers, and clinicians. We work in partnership with scholarly communities to ensure that these communities are sustained and extended, science is advanced, research meets the highest standards, and patient care is enhanced with accurate and timely information."

BC libraries' scholarly communications site with a mission to, "keep users informed of and to garner user input regarding developments in all aspects of scholarly communication."

"Dedicated to fostering open access to quality information in support of learning, scholarship, research and patient care."

"Provides commentary on open access, scholarly electronic publishing and digital culture issues."

"Running list of research papers, editorial appointments, and other content and actions results in freely available scholarship by researchers at CalTech. Created by CalTech librarians.

Cornell University Library scholarly communication website. "The purposes of this Web page are (a) to inform Cornell faculty of some of the key issues that drive the debates over scholarly communication, and (b) to suggest action that faculty might consider to support needed changes."