Revised Resolution on Open Access and Scholarship Prepared by the Senate Task Force on Scholarly Publications and Authors’ Rights

At the February 24, 2010 University of Virginia Faculty Senate meeting, there was a vote on the Revised Resolution on Open Access and Scholarship prepared by the senate Task Force on Scholarly Publication and Authors' Rights.

During the meeting, Brian Pusser explained that the goals of the resolution are: to build greater consensus in favor of open access; to enable faculty to use their own articles; and to make our own articles as widely available as possible under existing copyright law. In the current resolution, open access is no longer mandatory, so there is no need for an opt-out. The language calls for a continued task force to report on faculty use of the library’s repository.

In response to a question about the cost, University Librarian Karin Wittenborg said that the Library has already established a repository; if faculty want to opt in and keep their copyrights, they can – there is no additional cost to the Library of them doing that.

A vote was taken on the revised resolution, which passed unanimously.