Elsevier Still Solidly on the Side of the Angels on Open Access

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

The following re-posting from Peter Suber's OA News
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_07_08_fosblogarchive.html#66675142481419092
reconfirms that Elsevier is squarely on the side of the angels
insofar as OA is concerned: Elsevier is and remains solidly Green
on author self-archiving. So if there is any finger of blame to
be pointed, it is to be pointed straight at the research
community itself, not at Elsevier. If researchers desire Open
Access, and fail to provide it by self-archiving their own
articles, it is entirely their own fault, certainly not
Elsevier's.

And if researchers' institutions and funders are aggrieved that
their researchers are not providing OA, yet they have failed to
mandate that they do so, there is again no one else to fault but
themselves.

Read on. And then if you are a researcher and minded to complain
about the absence of OA, please don't waste keystrokes demonizing
publishers like Elsevier, or signing pious declarations,
statements, manifestos, or boycott-threats: Direct your
keystrokes instead toward the self-archiving of your own articles
in your own Institutional Repository!

-------------------------------------------
Elsevier restates its self-archiving policy

Ways to Use Journal Articles Published by Elsevier: A Practical
Guide, Elsevier, Version 1.0, June 2007.  (Thanks to Rea Devakos.)
http://www.elsevier.com/framework_editors/pdfs/waystousearticles.pdf

Elsevier compiled this guide for its journal editors, but it may
also be useful for authors and readers.

Excerpt:

Elsevier believes it is important to communicate clearly about
our policies regarding the use of articles we publish....However,
this guide does not amend, replace or cancel any part of an
existing license with Elsevier....

Authors publishing in Elsevier journals retain wide rights to
continue to use their works to support scientific advancement,
teaching and scholarly communication. An author can, without
asking permission, do the following after publication of the
author's article in an Elsevier-published journal:

Make copies (print or electronic) of the author's article for
personal use or the author's own classroom teaching.
Make copies of the article and distribute them (including via email) to
known research colleagues for their personal use but not for commercial
purposes as described below [PS: omitted here].

* Present the article at a meeting or conference and distribute
copies of the article to attendees.

* Allow the author's employer to use the article in full or in
part for other intracompany use (e.g., training).

* Retain patent and trademark rights and rights to any process or
procedure described in the article.

* Include the article in full or in part in a thesis or
dissertation.

* Use the article in full or in part in a printed compilation of
the author's, such as collected writings and lecture notes.

* Use the article in full or in part to prepare other derivative
works, including expanding the article to book-length form, with
each such work to include full acknowledgment of the article's
original publication in the Elsevier journal.

* Post, as described below, the article to certain websites or
servers.... Web posting of articles

Elsevier understands researchers want widespread distribution of
their work and supports authors by enabling such distribution
within the context of orderly peer review and publication.

Most journals published by Elsevier will consider (for peer
review and publication) papers already posted in pre-publication
versions to the Web. Pre-publication posting is common practice
in, for example, physics and mathematics. However, some Elsevier
clinical and biomedical journals, including The Lancet and Cell
Press journals, follow the guidelines of the International
Committee of Medical Journal Editors and do not consider for
publication papers that have already been posted publicly. Anyone
with a question regarding pre-publication posting and subsequent
submission of a paper to an Elsevier journal should consult that
journal's instructions to authors or contact the editor.

An author can, without asking permission, do the following with
the author's article that has been or will be published in an
Elsevier journal:

* Post a pre-print version of the article on Internet websites
including electronic pre-print servers, and retain indefinitely
this version on such servers or sites (unless prohibited in a
specific Elsevier journal's instructions to authors).

Post a personal manuscript version of the article on the author's
personal or institutional website or server, provided each such
posting includes a link to the article's Digital Object
Identifier (DOI) and includes a complete citation for the
article. This means an author can update a personal manuscript
version (e.g., in Word or TeX format) of the article to reflect
changes made during the peer-review and editing process. Note
such posting may not be for commercial purposes and may not be to
any external, third-party website. Elsevier-published authors
employed by corporations may post their revised personal
manuscript versions of their final articles to their corporate
intranets if they are secure and do not allow public access.

This policy permitting open posting of revised personal
manuscript versions applies to authors publishing articles in any
Elsevier journals, including The Lancet and Cell Press journals.

If an article has multiple authors, each author has the same
posting rights.

To preserve the integrity of the official record of publication,
the final published version of an article as it appears (in PDF
or HTML) in an Elsevier journal will continue to be available
only on an Elsevier site....

Peter Suber, OA News

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_07_08_fosblogarchive.html#66675142481419092

Stevan Harnad
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