Harvard Law School Unanimously Adopts Green OA Self-Archiving Mandate

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 7 May 2008 17:16:55 -0400

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Harvard Law School Unanimously Adopts Green OA Self-Archiving Mandate

John Palfrey, Executive Director of Harvard's Berkman Center for
Internet & Society and Terry Martin's successor as head of the
Harvard Law Library has just announced Harvard Law
School's unanimous adoption of a Green OA Self-Archiving Mandate. 

That is Harvard's 2nd, the US's 4th, and the world's 44th (with 7
more proposed mandates under consideration, including the EUA
council's unanimous recommendation to its 791 member universities in
46 countries). 

The Harvard Law School mandate is registered in ROARMAP. Here is
John'sannouncement:

____________________________________________________________________________
      "I'm just delighted that the Harvard Law School
      faculty has voted unanimously to adopt an open access
      policy. This policy is consistent with the policy adopted
      by the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences earlier this
      year.

      "Here is what we approved:
            'The Faculty of the Harvard Law School is
            committed to disseminating the fruits of its
            research and scholarship as widely as
            possible. In keeping with that commitment,
            the Faculty adopts the following policy: Each
            Faculty member grants to the President and
            Fellows of Harvard College permission to make
            available his or her scholarly articles and
            to exercise the copyright in those articles.
            More specifically, each Faculty member grants
            to the President and Fellows a nonexclusive,
            irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise
            any and all rights under copyright relating
            to each of his or her scholarly articles, in
            any medium, and to authorize others to do the
            same, provided that the articles are not sold
            for a profit. The policy will apply to all
            scholarly articles authored or co-authored
            while the person is a member of the Faculty
            except for any articles completed before the
            adoption of this policy and any articles for
            which the Faculty member entered into an
            incompatible licensing or assignment
            agreement before the adoption of this policy.
            The Dean or the Dean?s designate will waive
            application of the policy to a particular
            article upon written request by a Faculty
            member explaining the need.

            'Each Faculty member will provide an
            electronic copy of the final version of the
            article at no charge to the appropriate
            representative of the Provost?s Office in an
            appropriate format (such as PDF) specified by
            the Provost?s Office no later than the date
            of its publication. The Provost?s Office may
            make the article available to the public in
            an open-access repository.

            'The Office of the Dean will be responsible
            for interpreting this policy, resolving
            disputes concerning its interpretation and
            application, and recommending changes to the
            Faculty from time to time. The policy will be
            reviewed after three years and a report
            presented to the Faculty.'

      "There have been many champions of this and related
      issues throughout the academic world, including Peter
      Suber and Michael Carroll. At Harvard, the university
      librarian, Robert Darnton, and Berkman Center faculty
      director Stuart Shieber, of the new school of engineering
      and applied sciences at Harvard, are chief among them.

      "Prof. Robert Darnton said of this vote: 'That such a
      renowned law school should support Open Access so
      resoundingly is a victory for the democratization of
      knowledge. Far from turning its back to the outside
      world, the HLS is sharing its intellectual wealth.' 

      "Amen." -- John Palfrey
Received on Wed May 07 2008 - 22:20:41 BST