Library News for the Faculty

Scholarly Communication Update: Recap of "Managing Intellectual Property" Symposium

By turns informative, thought-provoking, and surprising, the November 18 symposium "Managing Intellectual Property: What Faculty Need to Know to Publish and Teach in the Digital Age" attracted some 125 faculty and staff to a welcome by UCLA University Librarian Gary E. Strong, the keynote address by James Hilton, a talk by California Digital Library (CDL) University Librarian Dan Greenstein, breakout sessions, and a resource fair. Hilton's keynote address focused on copyright myths and realities. He outlined legal, technological, and cultural factors by describing current copyright law, which was drafted to promote learning rather than to protect intellectual property; quantitative and qualitative changes to copyright in the digital age; and a shift in the view of knowledge to a commodity. He then identified fault lines among the three areas by describing actual cases questioning who "owns" class notes, the right to publish, course materials, and collaborations.

He concluded with both idealistic and practical suggestions for what faculty can do. At the idealistic level he suggested that faculty and universities "engage the community in conversations about the potential clash between the scholarly need for free exchange and a popular culture that sees ideas as gold." On a practical level he suggested that faculty and universities assert fair-use rights and support digital repository technology and policies and new forms of publishing; the Creative Commons approach to copyright, which enables authors to reserve some rights; and open-source software and collaborations.

Dan Greenstein discussed scholarly communication within the UC context. He began with data that show the unsustainability of the economics of scholarly journal publishing across disciplines and publishers, including non-profits and scholarly societies, and noted how increasing costs for journals mean libraries with static collections budgets must purchase fewer monographs. He then outlined steps that UC is taking, including increasing budget allocations for its libraries; negotiating better deals with electronic journal publishers; more pro-actively informing and involving faculty; participating in the Open Library, a project to provide free Web access to important book collections from around the world; and creating and promoting the CDL eScholarship Repository.

Greenstein also outlined what UC faculty are doing. A 2004 survey indicated high levels of awareness and interest in open-access publishing, copyright issues, and escalating prices of journals. Usage of the eScholarship Repository continues to grow rapidly, both in terms of research published in it and accessed through it, indicating an increased awareness and acceptance of this new scholarly publishing model. Senates at several campuses have passed resolutions on scholarly publishing issues, and the Academic Council has created a special council to recommend statewide faculty actions.

Greenstein pointed out that these actions are having an effect, because publishers are responding both positively and negatively. On the relatively positive side, some publishers have begun to offer open-access options, and some have begun to calculate license prices by usage levels rather than a flat fee. However, the Association of American Publishers has challenged the practice of e-reserves, a case that threatens to become a lawsuit and that could have serious repercussions at universities across the country.

Following Hilton's and Greenstein's talks, faculty attended break-out sessions in which they could identify issues, share concerns, and suggest actions. L. Amy Blum, UCLA campus counsel, and Sharon E. Farb, director of digital collection management and licensing for the UCLA Library, facilitated the session on using copyrighted materials in courses. Molly S. Van Houweling, acting professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) and a board member of Crea-tive Commons, facilitated the session on managing copyright as authors. Greenstein and Jackson Beatty, professor in the UCLA Department of Psychology, facilitated the session on increasing the impact of scholarship. And Abdelmonem A. Afifi, dean emeritus in the UCLA School of Public Health and a professor in the Department of Biostatistics, and Kathryn Atchison, interim vice provost for intellectual property and industrial relations at UCLA and a professor in the School of Dentistry, facilitated the session on meeting new requirements for disseminating research findings.

Attendees came back together for a luncheon and wrap-up remarks by Greenstein. Many then stayed on for the resource fair, where experts offered individual consultations on subjects including authors' agreements, open-access journals, self-archiving, and electronic course materials.

Symposium materials, including videos and PowerPoint presentations from the talks, notes from the breakout sessions, and handouts from the resource fair, are available on the symposium Web site.