MIT Libraries News

New agreement reflects physical proximity, cross-registration, joint programs, and research affinities

The Provosts of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have charged their respective library systems to explore expanded collaborations for sharing library materials, advancing digital preservation and collection, and developing future off-site storage facilities.

Both institutions have identified increased collaboration between and among their complementary libraries as an essential element in developing the research library of the 21^st century. While an ambitious level of collaboration is anticipated, each library system will remain engaged with and guided by the respective missions and priorities of each university. While enhanced collaboration may serve to reduce prospective costs, the focus of the collaboration is on the future of 21^st-century library services, technologies, and collections.

“No single library system can expect to meet the full intellectual needs of the academic and research communities of MIT and Harvard,” stated Harvard Provost Steven E. Hyman. “A wide-ranging exploration of all opportunities for collaboration is of great interest to both institutions.”

Both formal and informal relationships already exist between the MIT and Harvard libraries. MIT has shared in the use of the Harvard Depository since its inception in 1985. A 1995 agreement between Harvard College Library (HCL) and MIT brought reciprocal borrowing privileges to faculty, researchers, and graduate students in both institutions. An April 2010 pilot program extended those privileges to undergraduate students.

While traditional library materials have been the focus of prior agreements, digital materials are at the forefront of the new alliance.

“The increasing primacy of digital materials brings its own urgency to our collaboration, ” observed MIT Provost L. Rafael Reif.  “As new models of online information delivery emerge, Harvard and MIT can support joint programs for open-access as well as joint acquisition and licensing approaches that are appropriate for education and academic research.”

Under the agreement, the two libraries will develop a four-tiered action plan by the end of 2011.  The four tiers are:

Reciprocal access to circulating collections

By developing linked access between Harvard and MIT library catalogs and implementing reciprocal privileges that extend to Harvard’s graduate and professional school libraries, library patrons can anticipate full access to 20 million volumes that users will experience as a single collection.

Enhancing digital preservation and collection practices

MIT and Harvard have earned leadership roles through their open access programs and repositories and through their respective approaches to digital preservation. High priority areas for collaborative growth include digital archives of faculty papers and web-based publications.

Developing wider access to electronic information

Questions of electronic serials pricing, and the costs of building digital information management and delivery systems, point to opportunities for Harvard and MIT to investigate new models for licensing agreements, as well as alternative, open access forms of publication that reflect each institution’s commitment to the dissemination of new knowledge.

Envisioning joint off-site storage facilities for the future

Harvard and MIT have shared the Harvard Depository for high-density, non-browsable, off-site storage since 1985. Together, the two universities could effectively anticipate both a new service model and an additional facility for off-site storage.

“We’ve enjoyed a collaborative working relationship with Harvard’s libraries for many years,” said Ann Wolpert, Director of the MIT Libraries.  “This new agreement builds on our successes and underscores the commitment we share to provide our communities with the best and broadest range of resources possible, and to be at the forefront of advancing the digital preservation of scholarly work.”

“In several ways, the libraries of Harvard and MIT are already united by proximity and affinity,” said Helen Shenton, Executive Director of the Harvard Library. “Our new agreement supports the distinct priorities of two very singular universities. At the same time, it challenges us to collaborate on a sustainable information ecosystem for the 21st century.”

The MIT Press, publisher of more than 30 scholarly journals, has confirmed that it fully supports the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy.

“We are pleased to support this MIT faculty initiative and we appreciate the role of the MIT Libraries in making it happen,” said Ellen W. Faran, MIT Press Director. Many of the MIT Press journals are published on behalf of other organizations such as scholarly societies and universities, so the Press needed to gain the cooperation of 12 different entities to ensure that its entire journals program was aligned with the Policy.

The Press also needed to revise its standard author agreements for each journal. MIT faculty authors may now check a box indicating their affiliation which flags their article as subject to the Policy. The Press has posted a separate policy for MIT faculty authors which affirms that they may post their articles on their personal websites or in their institutional repository as soon as the final published version is available. This represents an exception to the MIT Press policy which requires standard embargo periods of 3 to 12 months after publication.

The Press is providing significant support for MIT authors by allowing MIT to copy MIT-authored articles from the Press’ website for posting in MIT’s repository. This means that authors do not need to submit their manuscripts in order for them to appear in DSpace@MIT.

To review other confirmed publisher responses to the Policy, please see: Publishers and the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. Publishers are being added to this web page as information becomes available.

Please send any questions about publishers not yet on the page to copyright-lib@mit.edu.

For more information:

MIT Faculty Open Access Policy

Details on working with the policy

The Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG)and Copernicus Publications have confirmed that they are fully cooperating with the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy.

Both the SEG (publisher of Geophysics and other journals, and Copernicus (open access publisher of Earth System Dynamics and other journals), are allowing MIT to obtain copies of their final published articles from their websites.

This means that authors do not need to submit their manuscripts in order for them to appear in DSpace@MIT.

To review other confirmed publisher responses to the policy, please see: Publishers and the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. Publishers are being added to this web page as information becomes available.

Please send any questions about publishers not yet on the page to copyright-lib@mit.edu.

For more information:

MIT Faculty Open Access Policy

Details on working with the policy

Date: Wednesday, November 03 2010, 6:30pm - 8:30pm

Location: Killian Hall MIT Room 14W-111

Registration: https://alum.mit.edu/smarTrans/register-login.vm?eventID=48142&groupID=146

Physical/Virtual:  MIT Libraries in the Digital Age, a program sponsored by the MIT Alumni Club of Boston, will feature a panel discussion moderated by Ann Wolpert, Director of Libraries.   This discussion will explore the diverse ways the Libraries support teaching and research at MIT today. The panel will include Tom Rosko, Head of the Institute Archives and Special Collections; Ellen Duranceau, Program Manager of Scholarly Publishing and Licensing; and Angie Locknar, a librarian who will discuss innovative instructional programs (including collaboration with Don Sadoway’s famous Introduction to Solid State Chemistry).

The MIT Libraries provide support for MIT authors who wish to publish their work openly, with no barriers to access for readers from anywhere in the world.

The newly redesigned scholarly publishing website provides a summary of the specific Libraries-sponsored programs that support open access publishing for MIT authors.

Some examples include:

• Funding (along with the Physics Department) for arXiv, the open access repository in Physics and related disciplines
• Paying for a membership in Nucleic Acids Research that allows MIT authors a 50% discount on open access processing fees
• Subscribing to PNAS, which provides MIT authors with a 25% reduction in their optional open access processing fees

These efforts, along with the new MIT Open Access Publishing Fund, make it easier for MIT authors to “disseminate the fruits of [their] research and scholarship as widely as possible,” a goal the faculty expressed in their Open Access Policy.

More information:

If you have questions about any of these programs, please contact copyright-lib@mit.edu.

As reported today by the MIT News Office, a year after the MIT Libraries began implementing the faculty’s ground-breaking open access policy, nearly 2,000 scholarly articles are now freely available online, and the effort to democratize access to published research is gaining momentum inside the Institute and beyond.

Read more about the policy’s impact in today’s campus news.

Faculty may contribute articles under the policy to the DSpace@MIT Open Access Articles Collection by uploading the author’s final manuscript, post peer-review, via a web form, or sending it to the OA Policy Submission list.

For more information, contact copyright-lib@mit.edu.

We are celebrating the one-year anniversary of the MIT Open Access Articles Collection. Since its launch in October, 2009, the collection housing the faculty’s scholarly articles has steadily grown to include:

• Over 1900 articles downloaded more than 63,500 times
• Participation from at least 110 different MIT departments, labs, and centers
• Papers downloaded (in just the most recent 2 months) from 125 different countries around the world.

Faculty may contribute articles by:
Uploading the author’s final manuscript, post peer-review, via a web form, or sending it to the OA Policy Submission list.

For more information, contact copyright-lib@mit.edu.

Earlier this year the MIT Libraries established a special fund, the MIT Open Access Article Publication Subvention Fund (OAAPSF), to support equity in open access publication by providing funding to MIT authors who might not otherwise be able to cover publication fees. A subsidy of up to $1,000 per article is now available to faculty authors publishing in peer-reviewed open access journals that meet certain criteria.

The fund was created as a result of MIT’s commitment to the “Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity,” launched with four other founding universities in September of 2009.

The goal of the compact is to allow subscription-based journals and open access journals to compete on a more level playing field by providing equitable support for the processing-fee business model used by some open-access journals.

First Use
Soon after the fund was launched, Professor Lionel Kimerling and Doctor Jurgen Michel applied for and received funding from the Libraries to publish their paper in Optics Express.

“We welcome the new program because it encourages publication in open-access journals that have high impact ratings by defraying the publication fees,” Michel said.

The fund is being initiated as a pilot project, in cooperation with the Faculty Committee on the Library System, with the goal of determining faculty interest and financial requirements for such a fund.

More information:

• FAQ on the purpose, scope, and use of the fund
• MIT news story
• MIT Libraries’ support for open access publishing

If you have any questions about eligibility for or use of the fund, please contact copyright-lib@mit.edu.

In a new video, Professor Hal Abelson, Class of 1922 Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, and co-chair of the Ad-Hoc Faculty Committee on Open Access Publishing, speaks about the MIT Faculty Open Access policy.

The video is also available as a series of clips: on the Origin of the Policy, Why It’s Important, MIT Impact, Worldwide Impact, and Participation.

The video is being released for the celebration of International Open Access Week, which begins October 18, 2010, and in honor of the one-year anniversary of the Open Access Articles Collection in DSpace@MIT, which houses scholarly articles made available under the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy.

Please contact copyright-lib@mit.edu with any comments or questions.

The MIT Open Access Articles collection, which celebrates its first birthday this month, is making MIT research openly available across the globe.

In the last two months alone, articles in the MIT Open Access Articles Collection have been downloaded from 125 countries.

The collection is made available through DSpace@MIT and houses articles made available under the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. It and has been growing consistently since it was established a year ago.

Faculty may contribute articles by:
Uploading the author’s final manuscript, post peer-review, via a web form, or sending it to the OA Policy Submission list.

If an author has already submitted this version to a preprint server or repository (e.g. arXiv), the author may email the paper’s identifying repository number, or the URL, instead of the paper.

For more information, contact copyright-lib@mit.edu.

The Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ), Berkeley Electronic Press (Bepress)and the Frontiers Research Foundation have confirmed that they are fully cooperating with the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy.

All three publishers — ASQ, published by the Johnson School at Cornell University; Frontiers, publisher of the Frontiers Journal series; and Bepress, publisher of journals in social science, science, and engineering — are allowing MIT to obtain copies of their final published articles from their websites.

This means that authors do not need to submit their manuscripts in order for them to appear in DSpace@MIT.

To review other confirmed publisher responses to the policy, please see: Publishers and the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. Publishers are being added to this web page as information becomes available.

Please send any questions about publishers not yet on the page to copyright-lib@mit.edu.

For more information:

MIT Faculty Open Access Policy

Details on working with the policy

The MIT Libraries have established a special fund, the MIT Open Access Article Publication Subvention Fund (OAAPSF), to support equity in open access publication by providing funding to MIT authors who might not otherwise be able to cover publication fees. A subsidy of up to $1,000 per article is now available to faculty authors publishing in eligible journals.

The fund was created as a result of MIT’s commitment to the “Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity,” launched with four other founding universities last September. The goal of the compact is to allow subscription-based journals and open access journals to compete on a more level playing field by providing equitable support for the processing-fee business model for open-access journals. As Provost Rafael Reif reflected when the Compact was launched: “The dissemination of research findings to the public is not merely the right of research universities: it is their obligation. Open-access publishing promises to put more research in more hands and in more places around the world. This is a good enough reason for universities to embrace the guiding principles of this compact.”

The fund is being initiated as a pilot project, in cooperation with the Faculty Committee on the Library System, with the initial goal of determining faculty interest in and financial requirements of such a fund at MIT.

Eligibility

This fund is intended to be a last resort for use when no alternative source of funding is available. Current MIT faculty are eligible to use the fund, for articles that will be submitted for publication after June 1, 2010 in open-access journals that:

• Are peer reviewed;
• Are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals;
• Adhere to the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association Code of Conduct;
• Make their standard fee schedules publicly accessible; and
• Waive their fees in cases of financial hardship.

Articles reporting on research that was supported by funders that allow research funds to be used for publication fees (e.g. NIH) are not eligible for this funding, whether or not publication costs were specifically included in the grant. The subsidy is limited to $1,000 per article, regardless of the number of authors.

If you have any questions about eligibility for or use of the fund, please contact copyright-lib@mit.edu.
________________________________________
More information on the fund:
FAQ on the purpose, scope, and use of the fund

More background on the Compact:
MIT news story
Compact web site
Inside Higher Ed article
PLoS article by Compact author and Harvard professor Stuart Shieber

Five more publishers have confirmed that they are cooperating with the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. These include:

• The American Geophysical Union (AGU)
• The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB)
• The Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research
• The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery
• The Society for Neuroscience
•  

  Four of these publishers are allowing MIT to obtain copies of their final published articles from their website, so that authors do not need to submit their manuscripts in order for them to appear in DSpace@MIT. This will happen automatically. For the fifth, the AGU, the final published article may be posted but only if supplied by the author.

  

  To review other confirmed publisher responses to the policy, please see: Publishers and the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. Publishers are being added to this web page as information becomes available.

  Please send any questions about publishers not yet on the page to copyright-lib@mit.edu.

  For more information:

  MIT Faculty Open Access Policy

  Details on working with the policy

A year after MIT faculty adopted a Policy to open access to their scholarly articles, many publishers of scholarly journals have confirmed support of their efforts, and over 850 articles have been added to the MIT Open Access Articles collection in the Libraries’ digital repository, DSpace@MIT, where they are freely available on the Web.

Publishers who are fully supporting the MIT Policy include:

• American Economic Association
• American Institute of Physics
• American Mathematical Society
• American Meteorological Society
• American Physical Society
• American Vacuum Society
• Beilstein-Institut
• BioMed Central
• Hindawi Publishing
• The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)
• The Optical Society of America (OSA)
• Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Rockefeller University Press
• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)
• SPIE
• University of California Press

Many of these publishers allow the MIT Libraries to capture copies of the final published PDF for deposit, so that authors do not need to take any action in order to have their articles openly accessible.

“We are learning that many other publishers are also friendly to the policy as we continue our conversations, and we expect this list to grow over time,” said Ellen Duranceau, MIT Libraries’ Program Manager for Scholarly Publishing and Licensing. “We want to thank all of the publishers who have cooperated with us thus far, and we look forward to collaborating with others as we move forward.”

The MIT Libraries, with the guidance of the Faculty Committee on the Library System, continue to work with MIT Faculty to help further the Policy’s goal of broadening access to MIT’s research and scholarship.

The Libraries welcome additional submissions from faculty to oa@mit.edu, or through the web form.

For more information, see Working with the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy.

The SPIE has confirmed that they are fully cooperating with the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy.

Because the SPIE, publisher of nine peer-reviewed journals, is allowing MIT to obtain copies of their final published articles from their website, authors do not need to submit their manuscripts in order for them to appear in DSpace@MIT. This will happen automatically.

To review other confirmed publisher responses to the policy, please see: Publishers and the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. Publishers are being added to this web page as information becomes available.

Please send any questions about publishers not yet on the page to copyright-lib@mit.edu.

For more information:

MIT Faculty Open Access Policy

Details on working with the policy

Hindawi Publishing, Rockefeller University Press, the Society for Industrial & Applied Mathematics (SIAM), and the University of California Press have confirmed cooperation with the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. The Policy, established last March, makes the MIT faculty’s scholarly articles openly available on the web.

Because all four of these publishers are allowing MIT to obtain copies of their final published articles from their website, authors do not need to submit their manuscripts in order for them to appear in DSpace@MIT. This will happen automatically.

To review other confirmed publisher responses to the policy, please see: Publishers and the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. Publishers are being added to this web page as information becomes available. Please send any questions about publishers not yet on the page to copyright-lib@mit.edu.

For more information:

MIT Faculty Open Access Policy

Details on working with the policy

The American Meteorological Society (AMS) has confirmed that their recently adopted policy on open access repositories is fully consistent with the new MIT Faculty Open Access Policy.

The AMS, which publishes 13 journals, including the Journal of Climate and Monthly Weather Review, has just established a new policy to support the “increasing demand for institutions to provide open access to the published research being produced at that institution.” Their policy allows for the posting of the published articles into a repository like MIT’s DSpace@MIT.

Because the AMS is allowing MIT to obtain copies of their final published articles from their website, authors do not need to submit their manuscripts in order for them to appear in DSpace@MIT. This will happen automatically.

To review other confirmed publisher responses to the policy, please see: Publishers and the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. Publishers are being added to this web page as information becomes available. Please send any questions about publishers not yet on the page to copyright-lib@mit.edu.

For more information:

MIT Faculty Open Access Policy

Details on working with the policy

The latest in the series of podcasts on scholarly publication and copyright is an interview with Craig Carter, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. He directs the Carter Research Group, which uses modeling to predict complex material behavior.

In the podcast, Professor Carter speaks about the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy from his perspective as a member of the faculty committee that put the policy forward for a faculty vote in March of 2009. Under the policy, the faculty gives MIT nonexclusive permission to make the faculty’s scholarly articles available and to exercise the copyright in those articles for the purpose of open dissemination.

He reflects on the “swiftness with which [the committee] reached consensus” about changes needed in the publishing environment, and his belief that “participation in the [policy] will help us do our job better by allowing us to freely distribute our works.”

Download the audio file. (5:32 minutes)

More information:

• Submitting a paper under the policy
• Working with the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy
• Listening to other episodes in the podcast series

To subscribe to the MIT Libraries’ Podcasts on Scholarly Publishing, paste this link into iTunes or another podcast reader: http://feeds.rapidfeeds.com/6772/

We encourage and welcome your feedback, which you may direct to copyright-lib@mit.edu.

The American Physical Society (APS) has confirmed that they are fully cooperating with the new MIT Faculty Open Access Policy.

Joe Serene, APS Treasurer and Publisher, comments that “APS was among the earliest publishers to support Green Open Access, and has long allowed authors to post our published version of their papers on an institutional repository, immediately after publication. Our goals and our copyright agreement align well with the goals of the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy, and we are delighted to have reached an agreement with MIT that allows authors to publish in APS journals without waivers of the MIT policy or addenda to our copyright agreement.”

Because the APS is allowing MIT to obtain copies of their final published articles from their website, authors do not need to submit their manuscripts in order for them to appear in DSpace@MIT. This will happen automatically.

To review other confirmed publisher responses to the policy, please see: Publishers and the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy. Publishers are being added to this web page as information becomes available. Please send any questions about publishers not yet on the page to copyright-lib@mit.edu.

For more information:

MIT Faculty Open Access Policy

Details on working with the policy

The Libraries are offering a new video, A Window on Fair Use, which provides an overview of US Copyright law’s Fair Use provisions.

The 9-minute video explains how you can employ the concept of “Fair Use” under US copyright law to legally reuse copyrighted content without permission from the copyright holder. It reviews the “four factor” analysis to assess whether a proposed use is likely to be a “fair use,” and offers relevant tools to support your own fair use analysis.

The tutorial also provides information on finding content that is available for flexible reuse, because it is in the public domain or offered under a creative commons license. It offers brief information on seeking permission to use for content when fair use does not apply.

For more information on Fair Use, see:

• The upcoming IAP session on “Demystifying Fair Use,” offered by the Libraries and Office of General Counsel
• The Scholarly Publishing Website’s copyright page