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Haworth Press Requires Copyright Transfer Prior to Peer Review

Haworth Press now has a policy of requiring a copyright transfer prior to peer review.

For example, the "Instructions to Authors" for the Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery & Electronic Reserve states: "Copyright ownership of your manuscript must be transferred officially to The Haworth Press, Inc., before we can begin the peer-review process."

This raises the interesting question of what happens when a paper is rejected: Haworth now owns the copyright, so how can the author now submit the rejected paper elsewhere?

Postscript: Haworth has posted a liblicense-l message indicating that it is clarifying its copyright transfer requirements.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 at 11:18 am and is filed under Copyright, Publishing, Scholarly Communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Haworth Press Requires Copyright Transfer Prior to Peer Review”

Kathryn Rutz Says:
March 9th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Yes, Haworth Press requires a signed publication agreement before a paper enters peer review in order to ensure that the work is not simultaneously submitted elsewhere.

The language indicates, however, that the coypright transfer is contingent upon acceptance and publication:

“In consideration for publication and dissemination of our work, if accepted and published by the journal noted on the Limited Copyright Transfer form, the author(s) agree to transfer copyright of the Work to The Haworth Press, Inc. …”

–Kathryn Rutz, VP, Editorial
DK Administror Says:
March 9th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Thanks for your reply.

It would be helpful if this policy was more clearly explained on each journal’s instructions to authors page.

–Charles