Protect Your Copyright

I was just re-reading a message from UW-Madison Libraries Acting Director Ed Van Gemert about how the UW-Madison Libraries must cancel more journals for 2008. It seems that no library, even the best funded, can stop the constant wave of journal cancellations. All of the UW libraries, including UW-La Crosse, will be expanding access to document delivery services in 2008 in order to provide access to journal articles, even as we have lost the ability to own this vital scholarly research from journals. Director Van Gemert ends his memo by urging scholars to retain copyright to their work, something I find myself urging as well. All publishers have slightly different rules about copyright, but the first step is to ask about retaining your copyright. If you don’t ask, publishers are most likely not going to offer it to you. UW-Madison’s Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing has put together a primer of sorts on how to negotiate copyright retention. I highly recommend it and will be adding a link to the library’s web page on scholarly communication.