For the past decade, the Association of Research Libraries' (ARL) Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) has been leading librarians' efforts to transform scholarly communication. Traditional methods of publication generally require authors to forfeit their copyright to publishers, who, in turn, sell these publications back to the libraries which support the scholars producing the works. In the digital age, these methods have become as economically unsustainable as they are unnecessary, and even damaging to the public interest, particularly given restrictive licensing agreements which prohibit libraries from providing open access to these resources. Open access initiatives such as SPARC, and Penn Libraries' ScholarlyCommons are leading the push to provide a mechanism for free access to electronic publications.
In contrast to traditional publishing models, and in keeping with the priorities of open access, Penn Libraries' ScholarlyCommons is a freely available repository for the preservation and dissemination of faculty and student research. Launched in 2004, ScholarlyCommons features over 10,000 works from researchers at several Penn schools and centers. It includes articles, dissertations, conference papers, works of visual art, and student publications, for example the College Undergraduate Research Electronic Journal (CUREJ). ScholarlyCommons allows authors to retain their copyrights, and promotes free access to Penn research not only for affiliated scholars, but also for high school students and independent researchers, particularly those in the developing world, who are not affiliated with institutions which can afford to purchase access to licensed content.
Coming on the heels of a similar resolution passed by the European Research Council, and Congress' Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2007, which in part requires that NIH-funded research be deposited in a freely available online archive, Harvard's mandate is a significant step forward in promoting open access to academic research. It grants the university, on behalf of their faculty, "a worldwide license to make each faculty member's scholarly articles available and to exercise the copyright in the articles, provided [they] are not sold for profit." While Harvard has yet to fully develop a repository similar to Scholarly Commons, their resolution is an effective step in wresting control of scholarship from publishers, particularly in that it requires faculty to opt out of its open access initiative. In the absence of a similar rights management mandate at Penn, faculty opt into open access, and this is a crucial distinction. At Penn, ScholarlyCommons provides the infrastructure to make open access a viable alternative to the present publishing system. Harvard's action reminds us that effective remedies require both an infrastructure and sufficient institutional willingness to control intellectual assets.
For more information:
Joe Zucca, Director of Planning and Communications
