IUPUI University Library joined a long list of endorsers backing the shared interests and values of the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts. Those core principles include:
- No author will be required to waive any institutional or funder open access policy to publish in any of the publisher’s journals.
- No author will be required to relinquish copyright, but instead will be provided with options that enable publication while also providing authors with generous reuse rights.
- Publishers will directly deposit scholarly articles in institutional repositories immediately upon publication or will provide tools/mechanisms that facilitate immediate deposit.
- Publishers will provide computational access to subscribed content as a standard part of all contracts, with no restrictions on non-consumptive, computational analysis of the corpus of subscribed content.
- Publishers will ensure the long-term digital preservation and accessibility of their content through participation in trusted digital archives.
- Institutions will pay a fair and sustainable price to publishers for value-added services, based on transparent and cost-based pricing models.
MIT will use this framework to guide the manner in which they negotiate with publishers. The principles support values much of the change scholarly communication community holds, open access being one, but also focus on MIT specific research needs, for example computational access to subscribed content.
IUPUI University Library has actively supported a move towards open access since 2001 with the establishment of our institutional repository. Use of the repository was heightened as the Graduate Office and individual departments began moving towards open archiving of student theses and dissertations and received another significant boost in adoption with the passing of OA policies, first by the IUPUI Library Faculty Council and then by the full IUPUI Faculty Council. Most recently we’ve been looking at how a move from purchase just-in-time in lieu of purchase just-in-case can, 1) be a more effective and responsible use of university funds and 2) allow redistribution of some funds towards supporting change in scholarly communication. As we continue to move towards this necessary change, endorsing MITs Framework for Publisher Contracts and considering our own version is worth our time.
Kristi Palmer
Herbert Simon Family Dean of IUPUI University Library