Author Archives: Gabriel M Feldstein

Public Domain – 2024

On January 1st of each year, different cultural artifacts entire the public domain due to the expiration of their copyright – and indeed, 2024 is no different – as books, musical composition, plays, movies and more produced in the year 1928 find their way into the public domain, which means they are free to use and reference without having to acquire copyright permissions. Of course, if an author references or uses an artifact in the public domain, they should be sure to cite it, but items in the public domain are no longer constricted by any copyright law.

The 95 years rule is not a given, however, as Congress has determined this number based on finding a balance between protecting author and publisher rights during the course of their lives, and ensuring that important artistic and cultural artifacts are – after due time – able to be accessed more freely, rather than rotting away behind permissions paywalls or other copyright constrictions. And some types of content are protected for longer – sounds recordings, for instance, are currently released to the public domain after 100 years, but recordings produced between 1947 and 1956, protection will last 110 years. Since the first copyright laws were established, the trend has been to extend the time of protection in order to protect authors rights – the argument could be made, however, that this protected period is perhaps too lengthy, as it is certainly much longer than an average lifespan. The chart below shows the timelines produced by the differing copyright acts of their respective moments.

Graph showing length of copyright based on act. in 1790 act protections were 28 years, in 1831 Act protections are over 40 years. In 1909 act protections are over 50 years, 75 years in 1976 act, and over 100 years by the 1998 (or Sonny Bono) Act, — Tom Bell chart showing US copyright term over time created for Wikipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Bell%27s_graph_showing_extension_of_U.S._copyright_term_over_time.svg

Cover and spine of first edition copy of Virginia Woolf's Orlando. Light brown cover with ornate pattern; title and author.

In 2024, while sound recordings may be protected – there is a great deal to welcome into the public domain. Joining the public domain – among other items – are JM Barrie’s Peter Pan play, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, and Charlie Chaplin’s silent film The Circus. Additionally, while the sound recording has not yet hit the public domain, the lyrics and music to Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do it, Let’s Fall in Love” have also entered into the public domain. And while Winnie the Pooh has been in the public domain for the past two years, he will now be joined by his longtime friend from the Hundred Acre Wood, as Tigger was introduced in The House at Pooh Corner, which was published in 1928.

As a result of some famous character and stories coming into the public domain, new artistic reproductions are taken up without having to pay for copyright permissions. As a result some very interesting titles have been released, including Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey and Mickey’s Mouse Trap, a pair of horror movies that certainly bring an alternative experience to the beloved characters. And indeed, the impact of cultural artifacts hitting the public domain means more than new inspired slasher films – items on the public domain are useable in teaching materials without the burden of securing copyright to acquire full versions of texts. Scholars can more readily and fully study bodies of work that are in the public domain without incurring expenses, which enhances the global scholarly discourse and allows for seminal work from our cultural past to freely accessible to those interested in studying it – and indeed, on the flip side, if copyright laws continue to get stronger, the ability for scholars and and librarians to make use of assets will be continually diminished in favor of protecting the copyrights for authors and creators who indeed deserve their due – but are more than likely passed on.

For more information on the public domain, please consult the resources below:

Duke Law: Center for the Study of the Public Domain

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications

Part of participating in an evolving society is the recognition that there indeed exists inequality between people on the basis of their identity. As certain groups are afforded more opportunities, or as the culture shapes itself around a set of particular experiences, it becomes the work of those who strive for equity and equality to think about the ways in which our society perpetuates cycles of oppression and systems of power. Though academia sometimes enjoys a reputation for being generally progressive, without intentionally thinking about how our institutions can better serve marginalized identities, it is inevitable that inequality and inequity will continue to grow further systemic roots.

As a counter to this, the University of California recently published a post detailing some of the ways that inequality impacts the production and publication of scholarly articles, and how that in turn can contribute to an even more inequitable and unequal academic space. To inform people of some of the pitfalls that normally befall scholarly communications groups and academic publishers, the post highlights a few areas of the publication process, how they may currently contribute to growing inequality, and how scholarly communications professionals can address and hopefully correct some of these practices now and in the future.

Additionally, a little over a year ago, the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communication produced their Guidelines on Inclusive Language and Images in Scholarly Communication. The guidelines cover best practices around avoiding implicit biases in writing, covering topics such as crime and incarceration with objectivity and care, ensuring images are accessible to all readers, and much more. Among its members, the coalition has OASPA, the Library Publishing Coalition, the Association of University Presses, the Council of Science editors and others. As many different organizations fight for more open models of publishing, libraries will continue to have a leading role to play in ensuring their collections reflect the full community of the world around us – and supporting independent publishers that may not have access to systemic privileges and massive contracts is an important step in building a fuller, more complete scholarly discourse.

Featured image from Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communication.

cOAlition S Issues a New Proposal Towards Responsible Publishing

While October 31st can bring lots of scary sights and frights, researchers and scholars hoping to continue to seek out and create more equitable publishing models were given some food for thought via a new proposal from cOAlition S – a leading initiative in creating more thorough open access models that ensure equity, timely publication, and comprehensive peer review than what is currently offered traditional subscription based models of publishing.

In their proposal, the international consortium puts forward four main ways that Scholarly Communication needs to change in the direction of more thorough open access:

Publishing models are still highly inequitable
Research assets’ publication is needlessly delayed
There is a potential for peer review that is not being fully utilized
Editorial gatekeeping is at odds with academic career incentives and it is damaging to the sciences.

Organizations across the world are fighting for more widely open access – as not all open access publications have the same level of accessibility. As more and more models push for Diamond publication and institutions fight for more transformative deals with more rights for students and faculty, keeping in mind some of the above considerations as well will help ensure that scholars are getting what they need from their institutions.

As more and more organizations and higher education institutions begin to question the inherent power dynamics present in our current publishing models, publishers are attempting to both meet user demand and also preserve their prestigious reputations in order to maintain subscription models and profitability. Additionally, as open access players like MDPI fight off attacks on their consistently high publication volume, it will be more important than ever for authors conduct research on not only the journal they are submitting to but also the publisher; understanding how their academic contributions will affect academic discourse in their field, and perhaps signal to other aspiring authors which journals are the safest, most accessible places to publish research.

Open Access Week Panel

This year for Open Access Week, the Boston College Libraries in conjunction with the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, will be hosting a panel of speakers. The panel includes Raquel Muñiz, Assistant Professor in the Lynch School; Kelly Gray, a third-year English PhD student; and Bryan Ranger, Assistant Professor in Engineering. Raquel and Bryan have also been recipients of Open Access Publishing Fund Awards – opting to ensure that their research is published fully accessible for all – rather than behind paywalls.

This year’s event will be on October 24 at 4:30pm in 245 Beacon, Room 215. Light refreshments and desserts will be served! RSVP is not required. Navigate to the Boston College Events page find out more about the event.

Open Access week is an internationally celebrated annual tradition where professionals in the publishing industry come together to reflect on the inequities of publishing for profit models, and explore models that fund scholarship more equitably, with a smaller burden for researchers who may be coming from smaller institutions with the ability to cover the costs of massive subscription fees.

Sign for Open Access Week Panel: Join us for a discussion about the future of equitable publishing and interdisciplinarity in academia. Pictures of panelists Raquel Muniz, Kelly Gray and Bryan Ranger. October 24th, 4:30 pm, 245 Beacon, Room 215.

Also for Open Access week, look for a display coming up on the third floor near the circulation desk and a new digital display.

Open Journal Systems – Upgraded to Version 3.3; New Features Available for Faculty Journals

Early in the summer of 2023, Boston College Libraries upgraded our version of Open Journal Systems from 3.1.2 to version 3.3. Along with a much more intuitive dashboard and design options, the upgrade given faculty run journals to integrate with iThenticate’s “Turn-it-in” – an automated plagiarism checker. Our portfolio includes e-journals from a wide breadth of disciplines at Boston College and, indeed, the list continues to grow and grow.

In addition to providing an automated plagiarism checker, OJS:

provides automated indexation – to places like the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and Google Scholar,
helps young researchers automatically connect their ORCID to their scholarly work,
automatically creates citations that are correctly formatted in a variety of different styles depending on the discipline,
preserves your journal in a private LOCKSS archive network,
and creates unique identifiers for every article – making them much more easy to find as scholars cite and visit your published issues.

Our journal collections can be found at ejournals.bc.edu – and we also have put together a series of data visualizations that demonstrate the international audience that many of our journals have reached with consistent outreach and accessibility best practices.

The snapshot above shows one of our Data Visualizations showing the readership of all of our OJS journals over the course of 2023. For the interactive graphic, be sure to visit our tableau visualizations!