Re: Authors rights: Going too far

[Jean-Claude Guedon <jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca>]

It sounds to me, on the contrary, that, given the lack of
understanding of copyright and authors' rights on the part of
most of my colleagues, some coaching by librarians and law
professors, along with some caveats about publisher practises,
are perfectly legitimate suggestions to make.

As for librarians, if they want to examine copyright terms as a
criterion for rejection of a journal, I do not see how this
interferes with the alleged "private matter" between authors and
publishers. At the same time, if authors began to understand that
some libraries refuse some journals because copyright transfer
agreements are too constraining, they might think twice about the
ways in which such "private matters" ought to be conducted. We
are beginning to propagate Creative Commons literacy in my
university and it is a lot of fun to see how my colleagues are
reacting and the sense of freedom and autonomy they seem to
derive from that newly acquired knowledge.

Jean-Claude Guedon

Le mercredi 12 mars 2008 a 17:51 -0400, Joseph J. Esposito a ecrit :

> Heather Morrison wrote:
>
> "Perhaps it is timely for collections librarians to add
> Author's Rights as a key criterion, when evaluating journal
> subscriptions to add, or to cancel?"
>
> JE:  Perhaps some lawyers on this list would like to offer a
> point of view, but this suggestion seems to me to go too far.
> It is disconcerting to suggest that librarians insinuate
> themselves in the contracts between authors and publishers,
> whose dealings are a private matter.
>
> Joe Esposito