Faculty Services: Scholarly Communication and Open Access:
The Issues

Changes in Libraries and Publishing

The prices of periodicals are rising more rapidly than those of books. Articles in periodicals are vitally important in many disciplines and time-sensitive, hence well-suited to online access. Databases, unlike books, cannot be borrowed through interlibrary loan. The publishers of scholarly journals recognize these opportunities, shift their content online, and raise their prices. Libraries are paying a higher percentage of their budgets for periodicals, but still have trouble keeping up. What can we do about it?

Impact Through Open Access

Universities pay their faculty to be productive scholars, but faculty give their research output away to publishers whose publications university libraries must purchase. Authors give their output away because they are interested in making an impact, not a profit. There is an alternative to restricted access to research through commercially available print books and periodicals and online databases: open access over the Internet from university- and library- supported servers. Research shows that open access increases the impact of your research.

Copyright and Fair Use

Authors can use copyright to the degree they do not transfer it to another party. Publishers want you to transfer it because their motive is to generate revenue, but that goal might be at odds with your goal of increasing impact. SHERPA RoMEO enables you to discover the standard transfer agreements of many scholarly journals, while the Scholar's copyright addendum identifies the rights you should seek to retain if you wish to ensure open access to your work. The copyright doctrine of fair use facilitates your use of other's works for teaching and research. For more about Copyright, see the Library Research Guide on Copyright.

Common Misconceptions

Conventional thinking and opposition to Open Access (OA) help perpetuate common misconceptions about these issues:

• Authors must accept the publisher's transfer agreement. No, it's negotiable; and as author you have a strong position.

• It is too late to gain permission to deposit your article after you have transferred copyright. No, you can request permission, and publishers want your good will.

• Open Access journals are not peer reviewed. No, in fact many OA journals are peer reviewed.

• Authors must pay publishers to permit open access to their articles. No, some publishers require this but many do not.

• There are few OA journals in my field. There are probably more than you think.

• You have to publish in an Open Access Journal to ensure open access to your work. --- No, even if you are publishing in a commercial journal, retaining your rights to archive your work on an institutional repository will allow you to make your work visible to the world, and break down publisher barriers.