SPEC Kit 310: Author Addenda · 13
addenda to individual authors—and has been suc-
cessful in negotiating a pilot project with Springer to
have all of their institutions’ articles published under
a Creative Commons compatible license.4
Rights Retained
A tally of the rights authors are encouraged to retain
by the responding libraries’ various author addenda
show that most addenda ask for a basic set of rights.
Most of these rights extend beyond the author to in-
clude uses by the author’s institution as well. Between
57% and 91% of the respondents said their promoted
addendum included each of the rights outlined below:
• Deposit work in an institutional repository
• Deposit work in a disciplinary repository
• Post on a personal Web site
• Post on a departmental Web site
• Distribute work in courseware
• Distribute to students
• Distribute to colleagues
• Create derivative works
• Right to reuse their work
The survey results indicate that retaining rights
for the published version of the manuscript is only
slightly favored (often by less than a percentage point)
over retaining rights for the author manuscript (either
pre- or post-print).
Retaining all rights except that of first publication
appears in only about half of the addenda, though
several respondents reported that they encourage
authors to retain as many rights as they can, know-
ing that a negotiation process with the publisher will
ensue. One respondent noted, “I like to encourage
researchers to retain as many rights as possible par-
ticularly for the author manuscript. The preference, of
course, is to retain rights for the published version but
given the current push back by publishers, getting the
manuscript rights would be a significant accomplish-
ment.” A respondent for an institution that uses the
SPARC addendum commented, “Authors are coun-
seled to try and obtain the broadest possible range of
rights they can negotiate back from their publishers.
Because very little success has been reported with
publisher acceptance of the SPARC addendum (ex-
cept as a point of discussion or departure), we do not
recommend a single approach but rather suggest fac-
ulty look at the SPARC materials and other sites and
templates and try to get the rights that are the most
important to them individually.” The survey results
illustrate that authors must take initiative to under-
stand the rights they are asking for and be prepared
to invest time and effort in the negotiation process
with a publisher.
Publishers are not particularly keen to negoti-
ating a plethora of different addenda and it is un-
clear how much they have modified their existing
agreements to accommodate some basic archiving
rights.5 Anecdotally, it appears that more publishers
are offering agreements that allow basic rights to
the author, even if they do not allow the author to
obtain exclusive copyright to their work. SHERPA,
a consortium of UK institutions that investigates
“open-access institutional repositories in universi-
ties to facilitate the rapid and efficient worldwide
dissemination of research,” offers some evidence
that the number of publishers offering self-archiving
rights has increased. In a response to an e-mail query,
the administrator of SHERPA’s RoMEO, a database
of publisher’s copyright and archiving policies, said
that the percentage of publishers who allow authors
to archive pre-print and post-print versions (coded as
“green” publishers) has fluctuated since 2004 but ulti-
mately the percentage remained the same (at around
31%), though the overall quantity of green publishers
added to the database has risen from 29 to 161 (and
the total number of publishers in the database has
risen from 85 to 539). The number of publishers who
do not allow any self-archiving (coded as “white”
publishers) has decreased in percentage (from 44%
to 37% since 2004), and overall, 61% of publishers in
RoMEO allow some form of self-archiving, which is
a promising number.6
Library Promotion of Author Addenda
The majority of responding libraries (34 or 71%) have
staff at more than one library in their system working
addenda to individual authors—and has been suc-
cessful in negotiating a pilot project with Springer to
have all of their institutions’ articles published under
a Creative Commons compatible license.4
Rights Retained
A tally of the rights authors are encouraged to retain
by the responding libraries’ various author addenda
show that most addenda ask for a basic set of rights.
Most of these rights extend beyond the author to in-
clude uses by the author’s institution as well. Between
57% and 91% of the respondents said their promoted
addendum included each of the rights outlined below:
• Deposit work in an institutional repository
• Deposit work in a disciplinary repository
• Post on a personal Web site
• Post on a departmental Web site
• Distribute work in courseware
• Distribute to students
• Distribute to colleagues
• Create derivative works
• Right to reuse their work
The survey results indicate that retaining rights
for the published version of the manuscript is only
slightly favored (often by less than a percentage point)
over retaining rights for the author manuscript (either
pre- or post-print).
Retaining all rights except that of first publication
appears in only about half of the addenda, though
several respondents reported that they encourage
authors to retain as many rights as they can, know-
ing that a negotiation process with the publisher will
ensue. One respondent noted, “I like to encourage
researchers to retain as many rights as possible par-
ticularly for the author manuscript. The preference, of
course, is to retain rights for the published version but
given the current push back by publishers, getting the
manuscript rights would be a significant accomplish-
ment.” A respondent for an institution that uses the
SPARC addendum commented, “Authors are coun-
seled to try and obtain the broadest possible range of
rights they can negotiate back from their publishers.
Because very little success has been reported with
publisher acceptance of the SPARC addendum (ex-
cept as a point of discussion or departure), we do not
recommend a single approach but rather suggest fac-
ulty look at the SPARC materials and other sites and
templates and try to get the rights that are the most
important to them individually.” The survey results
illustrate that authors must take initiative to under-
stand the rights they are asking for and be prepared
to invest time and effort in the negotiation process
with a publisher.
Publishers are not particularly keen to negoti-
ating a plethora of different addenda and it is un-
clear how much they have modified their existing
agreements to accommodate some basic archiving
rights.5 Anecdotally, it appears that more publishers
are offering agreements that allow basic rights to
the author, even if they do not allow the author to
obtain exclusive copyright to their work. SHERPA,
a consortium of UK institutions that investigates
“open-access institutional repositories in universi-
ties to facilitate the rapid and efficient worldwide
dissemination of research,” offers some evidence
that the number of publishers offering self-archiving
rights has increased. In a response to an e-mail query,
the administrator of SHERPA’s RoMEO, a database
of publisher’s copyright and archiving policies, said
that the percentage of publishers who allow authors
to archive pre-print and post-print versions (coded as
“green” publishers) has fluctuated since 2004 but ulti-
mately the percentage remained the same (at around
31%), though the overall quantity of green publishers
added to the database has risen from 29 to 161 (and
the total number of publishers in the database has
risen from 85 to 539). The number of publishers who
do not allow any self-archiving (coded as “white”
publishers) has decreased in percentage (from 44%
to 37% since 2004), and overall, 61% of publishers in
RoMEO allow some form of self-archiving, which is
a promising number.6
Library Promotion of Author Addenda
The majority of responding libraries (34 or 71%) have
staff at more than one library in their system working
