In discussing the library as publisher, we need to distinguish between the phenomena of “publishing” and “republishing.” “Publishing” means making a work available for the first time, while “republishing” is making available a work that had already been published before. When a library posts an article for first time in a digital journal, it is publishing. When a library posts online a scanned book article, or image, it is republishing.
When acting as a publisher, a library is often both a user and a creator of copyrightable works. One the one hand, you must find out if anyone has copyright interests in works you want to publish. On the other hand, you must determine how you will manage any copyright interests the library will have.
Permissions
Before you publish something, make sure you are not infringing a copyright owner’s rights. For works that are being published for the first time, this is relatively easy. If your library publishes a journal and an author submits an article, she wants you to publish it. Just ask her to sign a copyright permission form authorizing you to reproduce and distribute her work in any possible formats, including new formats that arise as technology advances. Many libraries that publish journals have author agreements on their sites you can look to for examples.[1] Columbia University also has a web site that gives examples of good and bad language for publication agreements.[2]
Aside from just knowing that you need explicit permission from an author to publish his or her work, you must get that permission in writing. The Copyright Act requires exclusive licenses be in writing, but non-exclusive licenses can be granted verbally or even implied.[3] However, relying on verbal or implied permission increases the risk of misunderstanding or misremembering the scope of the permission. It is worth the small investment of time and paper to make a thorough but concise copyright permission form that any authors you publish will sign. A sample publication agreement can be found in Appendix N.
- ↑ E.g., http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/ndif/about/submissions#copyrightNotice.
- ↑ http://www.keepyourcopyrights.org/.
- ↑ 17 U.S.C. § 204 (2006).
