Elsevier Still Solidly on the Side of the Angels on Open Access

The following re-posting from Peter Suber's OA News reconfirms that Elsevier is squarely on the side of the angels insofar as OA is concerned: Elsevier is and remains solidly Green on author self-archiving. So if there is any finger of blame to be pointed, it is to be pointed straight at the research community itself, not at Elsevier. If researchers desire Open Access, and fail to provide it by self-archiving their own articles, it is entirely their own fault, certainly not Elsevier's.
   And if researchers' institutions and funders are aggrieved that their researchers are not providing OA, yet they have failed to mandate that they do so, there is again no one else to fault but themselves.
  Read on. And then if you are a researcher and minded to complain about the absence of OA, please don't waste keystrokes demonizing publishers like Elsevier, or signing pious declarations, statements, manifestos, or boycott-threats: Direct your keystrokes instead toward the self-archiving of your own articles in your own Institutional Repository!

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Elsevier restates its self-archiving policy

Ways to Use Journal Articles Published by Elsevier: A Practical Guide, Elsevier, Version 1.0, June 2007. (Thanks to Rea Devakos.)

Elsevier compiled this guide for its journal editors, but it may also be useful for authors and readers.

Excerpt:

Elsevier believes it is important to communicate clearly about our policies regarding the use of articles we publish....However, this guide does not amend, replace or cancel any part of an existing license with Elsevier....

Authors publishing in Elsevier journals retain wide rights to continue to use their works to support scientific advancement, teaching and scholarly communication. An author can, without asking permission, do the following after publication of the author's article in an Elsevier-published journal:

Make copies (print or electronic) of the author's article for personal use or the author's own classroom teaching.

Make copies of the article and distribute them (including via email) to known research colleagues for their personal use but not for commercial purposes as described below [PS: omitted here].

Present the article at a meeting or conference and distribute copies of the article to attendees.

Allow the author's employer to use the article in full or in part for other intracompany use (e.g., training).

Retain patent and trademark rights and rights to any process or procedure described in the article.

Include the article in full or in part in a thesis or dissertation.

Use the article in full or in part in a printed compilation of the author's, such as collected writings and lecture notes.

Use the article in full or in part to prepare other derivative works, including expanding the article to book-length form, with each such work to include full acknowledgment of the article's original publication in the Elsevier journal.

Post, as described below, the article to certain websites or servers.... Web posting of articles

Elsevier understands researchers want widespread distribution of their work and supports authors by enabling such distribution within the context of orderly peer review and publication.

Most journals published by Elsevier will consider (for peer review and publication) papers already posted in pre-publication versions to the Web. Pre-publication posting is common practice in, for example, physics and mathematics. However, some Elsevier clinical and biomedical journals, including The Lancet and Cell Press journals, follow the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and do not consider for publication papers that have already been posted publicly. Anyone with a question regarding pre-publication posting and subsequent submission of a paper to an Elsevier journal should consult that journal's instructions to authors or contact the editor.

An author can, without asking permission, do the following with the author's article that has been or will be published in an Elsevier journal:

Post a pre-print version of the article on Internet websites including electronic pre-print servers, and retain indefinitely this version on such servers or sites (unless prohibited in a specific Elsevier journal's instructions to authors).

Post a personal manuscript version of the article on the author's personal or institutional website or server, provided each such posting includes a link to the article's Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and includes a complete citation for the article. This means an author can update a personal manuscript version (e.g., in Word or TeX format) of the article to reflect changes made during the peer-review and editing process. Note such posting may not be for commercial purposes and may not be to any external, third-party website.

Elsevier-published authors employed by corporations may post their revised personal manuscript versions of their final articles to their corporate intranets if they are secure and do not allow public access.

This policy permitting open posting of revised personal manuscript versions applies to authors publishing articles in any Elsevier journals, including The Lancet and Cell Press journals.

If an article has multiple authors, each author has the same posting rights.

To preserve the integrity of the official record of publication, the final published version of an article as it appears (in PDF or HTML) in an Elsevier journal will continue to be available only on an Elsevier site....

Peter Suber, OA News

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Pertinent Prior AmSci Topic Thread:
"Elsevier Gives Authors Green Light for Open Access Self-Archiving"

Cf: "Poisoned Apple"

"A Keystroke Koan For Our Open Access Times"

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum