Ohio faculty, scholars and researchers publish thousands of articles each year, in the world’s leading scholarly journals. 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 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.
“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.
OhioLINK’s recommendations to Ohio institutions, faculty and other researchers include:
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.
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.