Scholarly Communication: Suggested Addendum to Publishing Contract

Before signing a publishing contract, faculty, students and staff should consider carefully how the contract might later affect their usage of the published work in their teaching and research. It is important that authors retain the right to include the published work in a coursepack, to place it on their personal web pages and to post and update it in a scholarly e-print server. Frequently, however, the terms of a publisher's contract have access restrictions on work being used in such ways. Consequently, we recommend that all authors take care to assign the rights to their work in a manner that permits them to use the work freely, and permits their colleagues to use the work freely, in their teaching and research. Accordingly, we encourage authors to request that the following "scholarship dissemination-friendly" addendum be added to their contracts:

"I retain the right to use this work, in whole or in part, in my personal teaching and research activities, and for my colleagues at Washington University to use this work, in whole or in part, in their personal teaching and research activities. I also retain the right to post the work, in whole or in part, on my personal non-commercial web site as well as the right to post the work, in whole or in part, in free public e-print servers hosted by Washington University or by scholarly societies and associations."

You might also take a look at SPARC's Author's Addendum or consider using the Washington University Amendment to Publication Agreement.

Another approach Is Self-Archiving Legal, from Self-Archiving FAQ at eprints.org

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