<html>
<body>
<font size=3>[Forwarding from the Harvard Office for Scholarly
Communication. --Peter Suber.]<br><br>
<br>
Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication<br>
Wadsworth House 210<br>
Cambridge, MA 02138<br>
Amy Brand PhD (617) 495-4089<br><br>
APS Editorial Office<br>
1 Research Road<br>
Ridge, NY 11961<br>
Amy Halsted (631) 591-4232<br><br>
HARVARD AND AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY REACH ACCORD ON JOURNAL <br>
PUBLICATIONS<br><br>
Cambridge, MA & Ridge, NY, April 9, 2009 --The Harvard Office for
<br>
Scholarly Communication and the American Physical Society (APS) <br>
announced jointly today that they have entered into an agreement <br>
to facilitate faculty compliance with the University's open <br>
access policies when Harvard faculty members publish in the APS <br>
journals, comprising Physical Review, Physical Review Letters, <br>
and Reviews of Modern Physics.<br><br>
As a result of the new agreement, APS recognizes Harvard's open <br>
access license and will not require copyright agreement addenda <br>
or waivers, in exchange for Harvard's clarification of its <br>
intended use of the license. In general terms, in exercising its <br>
license under the open access policies, Harvard will not use a <br>
facsimile of the published version without permission of the <br>
publisher, will not charge for the display or distribution of <br>
those articles, and will provide an online link to the <br>
publisher's definitive version of the articles where possible. <br>
The agreement does not restrict fair use of the articles in any <br>
way.<br><br>
Three of Harvard's ten faculties have passed open access <br>
resolutions within the past 14 months, most recently Harvard's <br>
Kennedy School of Government. The main beneficiaries of the <br>
Harvard-APS agreement will be physics faculty members, who are no <br>
longer obliged to acquire waivers of Harvard's prior license. In <br>
addition, other institutions and their authors may find the <br>
agreement to be a useful model in their interactions with APS and <br>
other scholarly publishers.<br><br>
According to Professor Bertrand I. Halperin, Hollis Professor of <br>
Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in the Harvard Physics <br>
Department and Chair of the 2008 Publications Oversight Committee <br>
of the American Physical Society, "Harvard's open access <br>
legislation was always consistent in spirit with the aims of the <br>
APS publication policies, but there were differences in detail <br>
that would have required faculty members to request a waiver for <br>
every article published in an APS journal. It is a credit both to <br>
Harvard and to APS that these differences have been worked out. <br>
Since APS journals include, arguably, the most important journals <br>
in the field of physics, the fact that faculty will now be able <br>
to continue publishing in APS journals without seeking a waiver <br>
from Harvard's policies will strengthen both Harvard and the goal <br>
of promoting open access to scholarly publications
worldwide."<br><br>
Joseph Serene, Treasurer/Publisher of the American Physical <br>
Society, agreed with Halperin. "Guided by the APS mission to <br>
advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics," he said, "We
have <br>
since 1996 allowed authors to post their APS-published papers on <br>
their own websites, and their manuscripts on arXiv and other <br>
preprint servers, without embargoes or other restrictions. We <br>
also permit these postings on their employers' websites. Hence we <br>
applaud the spirit of the new Harvard open access policies, which <br>
we recognize as sharing our fundamental goals for scientific <br>
communication, and we are delighted that we and our colleagues at <br>
Harvard have reconciled the differences in our policies, to the <br>
shared benefit of Harvard authors and of the wider scientific <br>
community."<br><br>
****<br><br>
</font></body>
</html>