In which Pomerantz responds to his loyal fans

I’ve gotten a lot of love and kudos from the interwebs from my recent post, in which I document in nauseating detail my taking a principled stand on retaining copyright to an article I and a colleague wrote, and ultimately telling the publisher Taylor & Francis to kiss my shiny metal ass. I haven’t done any data analysis to back up this claim, but my sense is that this was.. Read More

My Copyfight

Actually it’s our copyfight, but my had a better ring to it. Here’s the backstory. Lorri Mon, a friend and colleague, is the guest editor of a special issue of the journal The Reference Librarian, on topics around the future of reference and library education. Since I have a thing or two to say about those topics (as my students have heard ad nauseam), Lorri asked me to contribute a.. Read More

Database indexing & journal copyright agreements, Part 3

This is the hopefully final chapter in a saga that began a long time ago in three previous posts far, far away. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. I had a paper accepted for publication in a journal. Given the choice, I signed the copyright agreement by which I retain copyright. Question: Will this paper be indexed in the databases I want it in?.. Read More

Database indexing & journal copyright agreements, Part 2

When I posted about this the other day, I hadn’t received a reply from Wilson yet. I have now, & here’s the crux of their reply: Library Literature & Information Science (like the other H.W. Wilson databases) indexes the contents of its journal list cover-to-cover. In practical terms, that means that any article of a least half-a-page in length will be indexed. The issue of who retains copyright to the.. Read More

Database indexing & journal copyright agreements

A while back I wrote that I was going to look into whether it’s possible for me, as an individual author, to submit my own article to be indexed in a database. Well, I finally got off my duff and actually looked into it. Actually I only contacted 2 database vendors: Wilson (re the Library Literature & Information Science db) and CSA (re the Library and Information Science Abstracts db)… Read More

Copyright conundrum

A couple of days ago I got the copyright agreements in the mail for a paper I’ve had accepted to for journal publication. This journal has 2 different copyright agreements, & they let the author choose which to sign: I assign copyright to the publisher, & the publisher handles all reprint & other copyright requests, & maybe submits the article to database publishers & aggregators. I retain copyright, & the.. Read More