FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Candi Clevenger, Communications Manager, OhioLINK, 614-728-3600 ext. 329, candi@ohiolink.edu
Ray English, Director of Libraries, Oberlin College, 440-775-8287, Ray.English@oberlin.edu
Tom Sanville, Executive Director, OhioLINK, 614-728-3600 ext. 322, tom@ohiolink.edu
Columbus, Ohio (August 30, 2006) – Researchers and students at Ohio’s major universities are authors or co-authors of more than 12,000 research articles each year in the world's leading scholarly science, technical, social science, arts and humanities journals (over 8,700 journals as measured by the Institute for Scientific Information). Even more articles are written by scholars from Ohio’s independent and community colleges. Yet there is no guarantee that Ohio will have access to research produced by its own scholars as the costs and quantity of scholarly journals keep rising beyond the reach of Ohio higher education. OhioLINK, a consortium of 85 academic libraries and the State Library of Ohio, has released recommendations that will help authors and their institutions retain the right to disseminate their works electronically, thereby assuring access to Ohio research for the Ohio scholarly community and beyond. The recommendation document, including a sample author publication agreement, is available for downloading at www.ohiolink.edu/journalcrisis.
OhioLINK also recommends placing research articles and related material in freely accessible digital repositories, such as its own Digital Resource Commons. This will help ensure that research published by Ohio scholars, in far ranging disciplines from cancer research, to economic development to educational practices, will be openly accessible for research and scholarship.
“The OhioLINK library community believes that research and works produced by Ohio scholars should remain accessible to scholars in Ohio and beyond, regardless of whether that scholar’s institution can afford to buy the published research. These recommendations move Ohio another step closer to turning that belief into a reality,” Tom Sanville, OhioLINK’s executive director, said.
Some of OhioLINK’s recommendations to Ohio institutions, faculty and other researchers include:
In making these recommendations, OhioLINK joins many organizations around the nation and the world who are seeking to protect authors’ rights to freely disseminate their own works, including the University of California, The Boston Library Consortium and the European Commission. While many journal publishers have changed their policies to embrace an author’s right to archive and share their own works for educational and research purposes, it remains the author’s responsibility to ensure they do not sign away their rights in publisher agreements.
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The Ohio Library and Information Network is a consortium of academic libraries that serves more than 600,000 students, faculty, and staff at 85 institutions. OhioLINK's membership includes 17 public universities, 23 community/technical colleges, 44 private colleges and the State Library of Ohio. OhioLINK provides easy access to information and rapid delivery of library materials throughout the state. For more information, visit www.ohiolink.edu/about/news.
The Challenge for Ohio Higher Education - Providing Access to Scholarly Communication
Ohio Digital Resource Commons Information Web site