Boston Library Consortium helps authors retain rights

The Boston Library Consortium has adopted an Agreement to Extend Author's Rights (available in Word or PDF formats) and plans to use it on member campuses to educate faculty about their rights and help them retain the rights they need to authorize OA. Like the SPARC Author's Addendum, the Agreement is a carefully drafted amendment to a standard copyright transfer agreement. (Thanks to Heather Morrison.)

Excerpt from the Agreement: 'The parties agree that wherever there is any conflict between this Amendment and the Publication Agreement, the provisions of this Amendment are paramount and the Publication Agreement shall be construed accordingly....Once the Article has been published by Publisher, the Author shall also have all the non-exclusive rights necessary to make, or to authorize others to make, the final published version of the Article available in digital form over the Internet, including but not limited to a website under the control of the Author or the Author's employer or through any digital repository, such as MIT's DSpace or the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central database.'

Excerpt from the BLC announcement: 'The agreement [was] initially developed by MIT, a Consortium member....This tool will be used by member libraries to raise author awareness on their respective campuses. This document, offered as an attachment, will provide an easy way for authors to secure their rights. The BLC will work with its members to encourage use of this document. Board President Cathy Norton notes: "This will show our solidarity with our authors and help them gain control of their intellectual property rights in the digital library. The Consortium's adoption of this agreement demonstrates to libraries and publishers that we care about the output of our institutions by preserving it at the local level and making it openly accessible for students and researchers." The Consortium is an association of 19 academic and research libraries founded in 1970. Members include: Boston College, Boston Public Library, Boston University, Brandeis University, Brown University, MIT, Marine Biological Lab/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Northeastern University, State Library of Massachusetts, Tufts University, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of Massachusetts Boston, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, University of Massachusetts Lowell, and University of Massachusetts Medical Center, University of Connecticut, University of New Hampshire, Wellesley College, and Williams College.'