This spring, the Graduate Center’s Mina Rees Library is offering four online workshops about publication contracts, copyright, and related topics. All members of the CUNY community are welcome, regardless of campus. The workshops are especially well suited to graduate students, faculty, administrators, and others who seek to formally publish or otherwise disseminate their work.
Each workshop stands on its own — there is no need to attend one in order to attend another. Simply register for whichever one(s) speak to your interests or needs. And if there’s a workshop that interests you that you can’t make, register anyway. The presentations will be recorded and shared with all registrants.
Journal Article Contracts: Understanding and Retaining Your Rights as an Author
Friday, February 9 at 11am-noon (Zoom)
Link to details and registration
When you publish a journal article, you sign a copyright agreement. Do you know what you’re agreeing to when you sign it?
Different journals have different policies: Some journals require you to relinquish your copyright. (You then have to ask permission or even pay to share your article with students and colleagues!) Some journals allow you to retain some rights (e.g., the right to post online). Some journals leave copyright in your hands. (You simply give the journal a non-exclusive license to publish the article.)
How can you find out a journal’s policy? Can you negotiate a better contract? Come learn how to preserve your rights to reproduce, distribute, and display the work you create.
Copyright and Fair Use for Scholarly Authors
Friday, March 15 at 11am-noon (Zoom)
Link to details and registration
This workshop will cover key information about copyright, fair use, and the public domain, and look at how copyright law both complicates and facilitates scholarship. Topics will include: What kinds of works are covered by copyright? What rights are included in copyright, and who holds those rights? How long does copyright last? What is the public domain, and how do works become part of it? What is fair use, why does it exist, and how can you determine if a use is fair? How have court cases changed what qualifies as fair use, and what are the implications of those cases for scholarship?
Understanding Creative Commons Licenses
Friday, April 5 at 11am-noon (Zoom)
Link to details and registration
This workshop will cover key information about Creative Commons (CC) licenses—both using CC-licensed works created by others and adding a CC license to your work. Topics will include: the relationship between copyright and CC licenses; what the different CC licenses allow users to do; the difference between using a work and making a derivative work; and choosing a license for your work.
Understanding and Negotiating Book Publication Contracts
Friday, May 3 at 11am-noon (Zoom)
Link to details and registration
Do you want to publish a book? If so, it’s important to understand the basics of book publication contracts! This workshop will cover the clauses that frequently appear in publication contracts, explain in plain language what they mean, and present strategies for negotiating “author-friendly” versions of these clauses.
When you understand and negotiate your book contract, you can maximize your creative, scholarly, and pragmatic goals for your work. Join us to learn more!
An additional offering for the Graduate Center community: On Thursdays at 3-4pm, Associate Librarian for Scholarly Communication Jill Cirasella holds drop-in Zoom office hours for GC students, faculty, and staff with questions about scholarly publishing. Drop by with your questions, or contact Jill at jcirasella@gc.cuny.edu to set up a consultation at a different time.
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