VCU Libraries Faculty Open Access Resolution
In the March 14, 2012 meeting of the VCU Libraries Faculty Organization, the faculty voted to adopt the following resolution:
Open Access Resolution
The Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries faculty believes that open access to scholarship is critical for scholarly communication and for the future of libraries and education. Our local, state, and professional communities cannot be engaged by our scholarship if published in journals that they cannot access. For these reasons we resolve to make our own research freely available whenever possible by seeking publishers that have either adopted open access policies, publish contents online without restriction, and/or allow authors to self-archive their publications on the web. We resolve to link to and/or self-archive our publications to make them freely accessible, negotiating with publishers when necessary to achieve this.
Several college or university library faculties have adopted similar resolutions or mandates--among these are:
- Gustavus Adolphus College, whose pledge VCU modified under Creative Commons license
- Oregon State University
- University of Oregon
- University of Calgary
- Wake Forest University
These are among a much larger list of faculty groups that have voted to adopt Open Access publishing mandates around the world.
An open access mandate establishes an expectation that a faculty group will publish their scholarly work in open access peer-reviewed journal (such as those listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals ) or will negotiate to retain their copyright when publishing elsewhere in order to re-publish their work in an open access manner, often through their university library's digital repository.