USAIN: 2001 Conference, Raleigh, NC

Pre-conference Report

Scholarly Communication and Copyright: Emerging Issues and Campus Initiatives

Main Speaker: Peggy Hoon, North Carolina State University

Panel Speakers: Anita Ezzo, Michigan State University; Norma Kobzina, University of California - Berkeley; Allison Level, Colorado State University

Moderator: Allison Level, Colorado State University

Highlights:

Peggy Hoon gave an informative presentation about the NC State Scholarly Communication Center, copyright basics, reclamation of scholarly publishing and UCITA. The Scholarly Communication Center "serves as a resource to the NC State community on scholarly communication issues, including copyright/fair use issues as they affect libraries. The center is pro-active in educating both the library and university employees on copyright through workshops and town meetings. She discussed copyright ownership issues in the academic setting, specifically individual/author ownership, joint authorship and work for hire. She continued by illustrating that the "publishers' bottomline is their shareholders rather than the academic community or advancement of the field."

Some proposed solutions:

Dramatic increases in library budgets
University or faculty retention of copyright
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition)
Minimal Refereeing Servers (NIH)
Preprint servers - Physics
Open archives (university or discipline)
Encourage scholarly associations to retain their journals - price journals near cost of production
Buying cooperatives
Focus on quality rather than quantity of faculty publication

Ms. Hoon concluded with a brief discussion of the Tempe Principles and the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act. Her sources included:

Create Change website www.creatchange.org

Hipps, Kaylyn. "Update on Scholarly Publisher Profits." ARL 201 (December 1999): 6-7.

Reed Elsevier Annual Reports

ARL Averages

www.arl.org/scomm/tempe.html

www.lib.nscu.edu/scc/

The panel members discussed how copyright concerns are handled at their institutions. Norma Kobzina explained the long-range and day-to-day plans of University of California Libraries system.Their activites include Melvyl (California Digital LIbrary) which acts as a buying consortium, the Digital Library Advisory Committee, the E-Scholarship Initiative and faculty forums. Anita Ezzo described the Digital Sources Center set up at Michigan State University. The center keeps a database of copyright permissions. In addition, MSU offers virtual courses and claims copyright ownership for faculty course notes placed on the university website. Allison Level provided list of suggested sites and sources for additional information on scholarly publishing and copyright.