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"Authors’ Rights"
It was a rather embarrassing moment. I was in a meeting with other copyright specialists from academic libraries when I received the email telling me that my article with Taylor & Francis had been published. Before I could stop myself, I expressed my surprise out loud, then had to explain to my colleagues that [...]
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I think it is time we talked about a difficult and sensitive issue. I have been asked the question over and over again during the past few years, and I recently saw it discussed on an electronic list. Should libraries stop buying materials from the publishers who are suing Georgia State University over electronic reserves? [...]
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Since I posted my thought experiment about how to create a revolution in two not-so-easy steps, several colleagues have sent me responses and additional material, and it is clear that further discussion is called for. That is good news, as far as I am concerned. Talking about a revolution, in the scholarly communications space, is [...]
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In his classic book The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis imagined the correspondence between Wormwood, a young apprentice demon, and his uncle, an older and more experienced tempter named Screwtape. Uncle Screwtape advises Wormwood on how best to corrupt human kind, and the book has become beloved as a kind of reverse moral theology. One can [...]
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It is a sign of how behind I am in my reading that over lunch last week I finally got around to reading the speech/blog post by Kathleen Fitzpatrick about “Giving it Away: Sharing and the Future of Scholarly Communications.” It is an eloquent statement about how open access and the sharing of scholarship [...]
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Admit it. You seldom get a chance to lobby the White House, do you? Even if you write lots of letters on topics of public interest, most of them go to newspapers or to your local representatives. How often do you really get to bend Barak’s ear? Here is your chance.
The White House has [...]
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It has been an extraordinary week for open access advocates, and it is only Wednesday! For those keeping score, here is a recap of events, along with some commentary.
On Monday, Elsevier issued a press release withdrawing its support for the Research Works Act. The RWA, of course, was a bill proposed in the [...]
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When the Chronicle of Higher Education ran this story about the relatively new intellectual property policy at the University of Louisiana, one of my colleagues reacted with the question in my title. It is a valid thing to ask — how did the University system think this was going to go when they drafted [...]
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Last week, “Inside Higher Ed” ran an article about the release by the White House of all the comments submitted to the Office of Science and Technology Policy in response to their request for information about public access to federally-funded research. I was gratified to see that they chose to quote from the comments [...]
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The snowballing petition on which scholars pledge to boycott Elsevier is gaining a good deal of attention. There is an article in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education, and this more general article about the future of Elsevier’s business model from Forbes. As of today the boycott pledge has over 2100 signatures.
As [...]
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Policy on Electronic Course Content
For help deciding whether course content in Blackboard or some other digital form is fair use or requires copyright permission, consult this policy document adopted by the Academic Council in February 2008.
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As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing. 
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