Several student groups from various institutions and organizations have compiled a statement containing what they believe are every student's rights when it comes to doing scholarly research. This lofty letter or declaration seems to mimic the universal declaration of human rights, except of course this has to do with research. The large majority of this declaration deals specifically with Open Access and how all copyrighted materials should be, or take the form of, Open Access works when it is being used by a student performing research. The main arguments for Open Access regard the benefits toward the advancement of scholarship, the prestige of scholars, and the enrichment of education.

The above article will be used to further the idea of the ideal librarian in the patron's minds. In particular, my essay will address university patron's (students and scholars). Using the Right to Research and citing its declaration will help to define what university students and scholars believe to be their rights when they are conducting research. Libraries are of course heavily relied upon when conducting serious scholarly research, thus the Right to Research doctrine should be something all libraries have in mind as an ideal scenario for their patrons.

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.

The above article is a PR address from the Association of American Publishers regarding the infringement lawsuit brought up on Georgia State University by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and SAGE Publications. The document gives the reasons why these three publishers felt it necessary to bring up charges against GSU and why it is important that the copyright they hold over their published works is important (mainly because of the significant funds they spend publishing their works).

 

http://publishers.org/main/PressCenter/documents/GSUlawsuitcomplaint.pdf

 

The above link directs you to the legal complaint in its original form. Using the above legal cliam and the press release to help decipher and guide me through this legal document will help me to better understand why the publishers feel they have been wronged by Georgia State University. The infringements listed by Georgia State University have most assuredly been facilitated by the library/libraries of GSU or at least exacerbated by the library/libraries.

 

I will use the above article as a way of understanding what was it exactly that publishers feel are significant reasons to bring up suit against an entity. By examining the stated reasons for the lawsuit, I could further research as to what could be done to eliminate the possibility of being sued for supplying copyrighted works to students, faculty, and staff by the university library. The above articles will help me to define in my essay what is sufficient cause for a publisher to take up suit against a university / library.

 

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.

 

This resource aims to address as many legal aspects of copyright infringement that the site's authors deem are most relevant to instruction and libraries. The site acts as a bibliography or index to various topics within coypright right law and links the user to a main source of information on each specific topic. In addition to linking to various topics on copyright law, it also links to legal information on copyright law and how it pertains to libraries and instruction. Under each section and sub-headings are abstracts explaining what is covered under each topic.

The following resource is an invaluable tool for addressing specific copyright concerns of libraries. After researching what each of the concerns are and making note of them, I will then be able to click through to find out more information on each specific topic. Though likely not a comprehensive source of copyright law which specifically affects libraries, it seems to be fairly wide ranging and well written. 

Several student groups have issued a statement to jointly back the open access movement in which scholarly research is shared online and free. The student statement argues for open access as the best way to share knowledge. "Scholarly knowledge is part of the common wealth of humanity," says the statement. "Unfortunately, not everyone has access to the scholarly literature, despite advances in communications technology." The statement was endorsed by the American Medical Student Association, Student PIRGs, Students for Free Culture, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, the California Institute of Technology Graduate Student Council and the Trinity University Association of Student Representatives.

The Research Information Network and Universities UK have produced a guide (March 2009) to provide advice on paying open access publication charges: that is, fees levied by some journals for the publication of scholarly articles so that they can be made available free of charge to readers, immediately upon publication. The guide also sets out recommendations for universities and other research institutions, publishers, research funders, and authors.

Google & Books: An Exchange
By Paul N. Courant, Ann Kjellberg, J. D. McClatchy, Edward Mendelson, Margo Viscusi, Tappan Wilder et al.

In response to Google & the Future of Books (February 12, 2009)

To the Editors:

My colleague and friend Robert Darnton is a marvelous historian and an elegant writer. His utopian vision of a digital infrastructure for a new Republic of Letters [NYR, February 12] makes the spirit soar. But his idea that congressional committees beholden to Hollywood might have implemented that vision is a utopian fantasy, while his description of what will happen as a result of Google's scanning of copyrighted works is a dystopian fantasy.

 

On 7 November 2008, the directors of the law libraries at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, Cornell University, Duke University, Georgetown University, Harvard University, New York University, Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, the University of Texas, and Yale University met in Durham, North Carolina at the Duke Law School. That meeting resulted in the "Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship," which calls for all law schools to stop publishing their journals in print format and to rely instead on electronic publication coupled with a commitment to keep the electronic versions available in stable, open, digital formats.

14 October 2008. PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research), supported by the European Union, will investigate the effects of the large-scale systematic depositing of authors' final peer-reviewed manuscripts (so called Green Open Access or stage-two research output) on reader access, author visibility, and journal vability, as well as on the broader ecology of European research. The project is a collaboration between publishers, repositories and researchers and will last from 2008 to 2011.

As of this month, Journal of Biology initiates a 're-review opt-out scheme' whereby once authors have revised their paper in response to peer review it is their choice whether the reviewers see it again. The experiment was inspired by the widespread frustration with current peer review practices and is strongly supported by a majority of the Editorial Board of the journal.

One signature at a time, national research agencies and university libraries have pledged to support a radical new system that would replace expensive subscriptions to leading journals with membership in a nonprofit group. The new organization would then dole out money to journal publishers, while pushing them to distribute all articles free online and to keep their prices in check.
The group is called Scoap³, the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics.

The University of California libraries and Springer Science+Business Media (Springer) have concluded a groundbreaking experimental agreement to support open access publishing by UC authors. The arrangement is part of the journals license negotiated by the California Digital Library on behalf of the 10 campuses of the University of California.

Under the terms of the agreement, articles by UC-affiliated authors accepted for publication in a Springer journal beginning in 2009 will be published using Springer Open Choice with full and immediate open access. There will be no separate per-article charges, since costs have been factored into the overall license. Articles will be released under a license compatible with the Creative Commons (by-nc: Attribution, Non-commercial) license. In addition to access via the Springer platform, final published articles will also be deposited in the California Digital Library's eScholarship Repository.

The University of California-Springer agreement is the first large-scale open access experiment of its type undertaken with a major commercial publisher in North America.

 

But are faculty members really embracing new models of scholarly communication? According to a report issued this week by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), carried out by Ithaka, the answer appears to be yes.

The report, "Current Models of Digital Scholarly Communication," was conceptual­ized as a "field study," based on conversations, designed to "look squarely at new forms of scholarship and scholarly works and consider them in their own lights." While the approach was not "statistically" meaningful, it revealed a rich cross-section of what innovation in digital scholarly resources looks like today. Among the principal types of digital scholarly resources identified: e-only journals; reviews; preprints and working papers; encyclopedias; dictionaries and annotated content; blogs and discussion forums; and professional and scholarly hubs.

 

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has released "PubMed Central Deposit and Author Rights: Agreements between 12 Publishers and the Authors Subject to the NIH Public Access Policy," by Ben Grillot, MLS (Maryland 2002), second-year student at the George Washington University Law School, and legal intern for ARL.

Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) is a peer reviewed, open access, online journal devoted to the publication of biological research in a video format.

A statistical model is proposed for the analysis of peer-review ratings of R01 grant applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health. Innovations of this model include parameters that reflect differences in reviewer scoring patterns, a mechanism to account for the transfer of information from an application's preliminary ratings and group discussion to final ratings provided by all panel members and posterior estimates of the uncertainty associated with proposal ratings. Application of this model to recent R01 rating data suggests that statistical adjustments to panel rating data would lead to a 25% change in the pool of funded proposals. Viewed more broadly, the methodology proposed in this article provides a general framework for the analysis of data collected interactively from expert panels through the use of the Delphi method and related procedures.

At least one system, the University of California, has independently been trying to do what the Ithaka report urged upon all academic institutions: Figure out what kind of publishing, formal and grass roots, is taking place on its campuses. In September its Office of Scholarly Communication published a report, "Faculty Attitudes and Behaviors Regarding Scholarly Communication."

wiki

The Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium is an alliance of neuroscience journals that have agreed to accept manuscript reviews from other members of the Consortium. Its goals are to support efficient and thorough peer review of original research in neuroscience, speed the publication of research reports, and reduce the burden on peer reviewers.

Nature article on efforts at LANL to define requirements for digital libraries.

"The daily intelligence resource for the STM publishing industry."

From their mission statement: " Project Euclid's mission is to advance scholarly communication in the field of theoretical and applied mathematics and statistics. Project Euclid is designed to address the unique needs of low-cost independent and society journals. Through a collaborative partnership arrangement, these publishers join forces and participate in an online presence with advanced functionality, without sacrificing their intellectual or economic independence or commitment to low subscription prices. Full-text searching, reference linking, interoperability through the Open Archives Initiative, and long-term retention of data are all important components of the project."

"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."

"ALPSP serves, represents and strengthens the community of not-for-profit publishers, demonstrating their essential role in the future of international academic and professional communication."