Library Faculty Organization Open Access Policy with Notes

"The Faculty of the Penn State University Libraries is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible. Members of the Library Faculty Organization pledge to make our own research freely available whenever possible by seeking publishers that either publish contents online without restriction, and/or allow authors to self-archive their publications using institutional and/or personal websites. In keeping with that commitment, members of the Library Faculty Organization adopt the following policy:   Each University Libraries Faculty member grants to Penn State University permission to make available his or her scholarly articles and to exercise the copyright in those articles. More specifically, each faculty member grants to Penn State University a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit, and to authorize others to do the same. The policy applies to all scholarly articles authored or co-authored while the person is a member of the faculty except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the faculty member entered in to an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy. The Dean of the University Libraries & Scholarly Communication or the dean’s designate will waive application of the license for a particular article or delay access for a specific period of time upon express direction by a Faculty member, and there will be no penalty for any faculty member who chooses not to make a particular work freely available to the public in a digital format. Unless a temporary or permanent waiver is declared, each faculty member should provide an electronic copy of the author’s final version of each article as soon as possible (preferably no later than 60 days after publication) at no charge in an appropriate format to be deposited in an open access repository of the scholar’s choosing. An example would be ScholarSphere, Penn State’s open access repository. In the event that an article cannot be deposited in ScholarSphere or another open access repository due to publisher restrictions, bibliographic details should be submitted with a link to the publisher’s website if available. A designate of the Dean of the University Libraries & Scholarly Communication will be responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending changes to the Faculty from time to time. The policy will be reviewed after two years and a report presented to the Faculty ..."