Open Access Button self-archiving guides - feedback wanted

"The Open Access Button creates library-aligned tools and resources that make it easier to do research without subscriptions. During our day to day work, we have noticed that authors struggle with finding the right copy of their research to archive, and we know from collaborations with the repository community that we are not alone. We decided to create guides that are specifically designed to help researchers understand how to properly self-archive. The guides are a resource for the community, and we encourage all to share and reuse them.

The first guide contains visual examples to help authors identify how preprint, postprints and versions of record look, how to find each version and check if that version can be legally shared online.  You can view it and contribute online at openaccessbutton.org/versions-explained . The second set of guides, available for most major journals, provide simple to follow instructions for authors to obtain an Author Accepted Manuscript from their Journal Submission System, where the AAM is stored during the publishing process. These guides are soon to be launched, if you are interested in giving feedback, let me know to share the final release copy of the document with you.

Our current next steps for the guides include refining their content, moving it to stand-alone pages, adding images, supporting data on which journals use which submission systems and A/B testing success with the guides. We’ll also be integrating them into our deposit pages, which already provide a route for authors to deposit and archive content legally without meta-data entry or policy checking.

The guides are possible thanks to the feedback and contributions from librarians and members of the community who have taken the time to chat with us and share their experiences. If you are a institutional repository librarian, if you work closely with authors, or if you have ever asked for content in behalf of authors we'd love to hear and learn from you. If you are interested in learning more about our efforts and find ways to collaborate, reply to this email or email me at ...."