Author Addenda, SPEC Kit 310 (July 2009)

Fischer, Karen

16 · Survey Results: Executive Summary
with colleagues and to reuse their work were also
important topics one respondent commented, “The
vast majority of faculty have been doing these activi-
ties all along without realizing that in most cases they
are violating the agreements they have signed and
seem quite stunned by this information.” Other re-
spondents indicated that they bring up author rights
and addenda while discussing open access, or how
to select a publisher with a friendly publishing agree-
ment or with paid open access options.
Frequently Asked Questions
The survey asked respondents to report who provides
advice on answering authors’ copyright-related ques-
tions. Library staff with legal expertise or in-depth
copyright knowledge field questions from authors
most often (85%), and 49% of respondents direct au-
thors to solicit advice from their institution’s legal
counsel. The questions below offer a sample of fre-
quently asked questions the survey respondents have
received from authors.
The publisher has rejected the addendum. What
do I do now?
I submitted the author addendum but the pub-
lisher sent it back to me all marked up with other
language. What do I do now?
How can I use the addendum when I have to sub-
mit my paper through a Web site?
Which addendum should I use?
What do I do when there are multiple authors?
What does this publication agreement really say?
What is the difference between my publisher’s
copyright form and what the addendum would
give me?
Is using the addendum or negotiating copyright
terms going to put my publication in jeopardy?
Do most publishers accept the addendum?
Which version of the manuscript is covered by
the addendum?
I submitted the author addendum with my ar-
ticle but they will only allow me to post my final
draft on the institutional repository. I am very
concerned about multiple versions of my work
being available. How do we address this? Which
copy will people cite? What do I do when I want
to make revisions to the article?
Can an individual author really make a
difference?
What will these changes mean for the survival
of journals that are important in our discipline?
Are publishers really willing to negotiate?
An informal look at a sampling of ARL libraries’
scholarly communication Web sites did not turn up
many answers to these questions, suggesting a need
for these to be answered by the library community
(and easily discoverable on the Web).
Conclusion
The survey reveals that among ARL member libraries,
author addenda education, promotion, and outreach
services are distributed among many staff members.
Additionally, those who do the work and the extent to
which outreach is performed varies widely. In a time
of pervasive budget problems in higher education, it
is not surprising to find that libraries are doing what
they can with the resources that exist. Undoubtedly,
many libraries found success by coupling outreach
on an author addendum with other services, such as
PubMed Central article deposits, institutional reposi-
tory development and deposit, copyright discussions,
and general outreach about the NIH Public Access
Policy. Comments from two respondents illustrate
these efforts:

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SPEC Kit 310: Author Addenda · 17
“Since the NIH Public Access mandate, we
frequently connect our promotion of author ad-
denda to a broader education campaign about
PMC deposit. The library offers a service that as-
sists with PMC deposit, and much of our one-on-
one addendum consulting occurs as a result of
that service.”
“While these voluntary addenda provide a
useful tool in discussions with faculty, we don’t
believe that active promotion of the addenda will
result in substantial adoption on our campuses.
Thus we have taken an approach of discussing
author rights and copyright in the context of other
services we offer, e.g., publishing, instructional
support, [and] reserves.”
Clearly there is difficulty in measuring the ef-
ficacy of author addenda, and this in turn makes it
difficult to sell the concept to authors. However, au-
thor addenda can serve as a “tool” to educate authors
about their rights, even if they never end up using an
addendum. One respondent explained, “in general,
addendum[s] have not been useful except as an edu-
cation tool for faculty and graduate students.”And
another noted, “it’s very difficult to claim to faculty
that it is an effective tool.”
Despite the difficulty in measuring success with
addenda, librarians are being asked by their admin-
istrations, with increasing frequency, to “demonstrate
active participation in scholarly communication ac-
tivities,” which includes discussing author rights and
author addenda. Many libraries are in the process
of developing or posting positions which require
legal expertise to help them manage the increasing
demand for author rights management, and to help
promote the rights of their institution’s authors. One
librarian explained, “As head of collection develop-
ment I tried for several years to convince the Provost’s
Office and the Dean of Libraries that the faculty need
legal counsel who will advise them about the amount
of risk to take, rather than protecting the university
from risk. Some of the faculty agree, but no position
has been forthcoming.”
The topic of author rights may arise in any situ-
ation or discussion with faculty authors which un-
derscores why understanding and explaining au-
thor rights is becoming a necessary part of many
librarians’ work. One person noted, “We have seen
an important change in our experiences with the is-
sues. ..[a] conversation about OA quickly shifted to a
conversation about author agreements and addenda,
with attention on the many various reasons for enter-
ing into better agreements. We always conclude with
one simple point of emphasis: Whatever you sign,
keep a copy.”
The survey suggests that academic libraries face
a steep learning curve in this arena. Increasingly,
libraries are providing services, or are being asked to
provide services, to help authors navigate a new en-
vironment where intellectual property, author rights,
and copyright have become a substantial component
of discussions related to scholarly communication,
and to the endeavors of the university at-large.
Notes
1. Association of American Universities, Association
of Research Libraries, The Coalition for Networked
Information, National Association of State Universities
and Land Grant Colleges, “The University’s Role in
the Dissemination of Research and Scholarship,”
February 2009
http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/disseminating-research-
feb09.pdf
2. Committee on Institutional Cooperation, Statement
on Publishing Agreements, 2008
http://www.cic.net/Libraries/Library/authorsrights.
sflb
3. NIH example language: “Journal acknowledges that
Author retains the right to provide a copy of the final
peer-reviewed manuscript to the NIH upon accep-
tance for Journal publication, for public archiving in
PubMed Central as soon as possible but no later than
12 months after publication by Journal.”
http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm#c3

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SPEC Kit 310: Author Addenda · 15
All but a few of the responding institutions (38 or
93%) have a public Web site that serves to educate staff
and authors on the issue of author rights and author
addenda. Other popular means of training staff are
face-to-face workshops (73%), handouts on key issues
(59%), and PowerPoint slides (49%). The library staff
charged with spearheading training efforts is primar-
ily a scholarly communications officer (if the library
has one), a library committee devoted to scholarly
communications activities, or library administrators
(55%, 48%, and 45% respectively).
Educating authors on the use of an addendum
takes place mostly when presenting on compliance
with public access policies (84%). However, other situ-
ations include discussing depositing authors’ work
in a digital repository (74%), author sharing of their
work (70%) and use of their work in teaching (65%).
When queried about which department or group
on campus takes a leadership role in promoting the
use of addenda, predictably 100% of the respondents
indicated the library. However, of interest is which
other groups or units also serve a role. Thirty-five
percent of respondents confirmed that the faculty
senate and/or the provost’s office is involved in a
leadership role, and 33% answered that a different
group on campus fulfills that role, ranging from the
“VP of Research,” to “Academic Technology,” to the
“Faculty board advising the library.” Notable is that
this work takes place across a wide variety of campus
units outside the library system.
Author Education
Activities
Two of the most used and most effective activities to
educate authors about using an author addendum
are presentations to faculty and one-on-one visits
with faculty. Eighty-six percent have used faculty
presentations to convey information about addenda
66% indicated this was the most effective form of out-
reach and 63% indicated that on-on-one conversations
with faculty was the most effective. Handouts and
brochures are used often by libraries (65%), as are Web
sites (60%), although the effectiveness of these efforts
ranked much lower than their frequency of use (at
17% and 26% respectively). Across the board, results
show that libraries made varied efforts to educate au-
thors, but that most were viewed as not very effective.
Sixty percent of respondents have made presentations
to graduate students, but only 26% noted that they felt
this was an effective activity. This result may imply
that the efficacy of efforts to educate graduate students
is not easily measurable since graduate students are
not publishing much and are more likely to be con-
tributors to a paper than the primary author. Perhaps
in the future, the value of libraries’ efforts at outreach
to graduate students will become more apparent.
The respondents were invited to describe up to
three activities that were most effective in accom-
plishing their outreach efforts to educate authors
about addenda. Comments revealed, again, that
one-on-one meetings with authors, where librarians
have the opportunity to discuss author rights, were
the most common activity. Presentations to faculty
groups, and often over a lunch “series,” a brown bag,
or at a departmental meeting, were also deemed ef-
fective. One respondent wrote, “Presentations at
formal and informal department events like faculty
meetings and coffee hours have been very effective
in getting the word out about author rights.” Another
commented that they did “presentations to faculty
departments and groups where faculty get the ‘deer
in the headlights’ look when you describe what hap-
pens when they give away their author rights. They
start using addenda after that and also want to par-
ticipate in the institutional repository. There have
also been many individual meetings as follow-up
from these department meetings.” One library felt
that faculty presentations are effective, but that it
was “difficult to get such opportunities,” which may
suggest that presentations are useful if you can get
faculty to commit the time to listen. Other libraries
have sent letters and e-mails to faculty, and one li-
brary described presentations to grant writers.
The main topic in outreach activities about ad-
denda was copyright law (98%), with institutional
repositories and the freedom to use their work in the
classroom coming in as the second most frequently
addressed topics (71% each). Freedom to share work

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