Whereas the Library Faculty of the Christopher Center Library at Valparaiso University recognize the vital importance of open-access archiving for the enrichment and expansion of scholarly communication, we adopt the following policy in order to ensure that our research and scholarly works are freely available in perpetuity to the widest possible audience.

  • We, as the library faculty, encourage all members of our department to publish in journals that are open access or allow open access archiving.

  • Before we sign a publisher’s copyright agreement for a manuscript (i.e. journal article, book chapter, book, etc.), we will verify our right to archive the work in ValpoScholar (VU’s non-commercial, open-access repository of institutional scholarly works) or attempt to retain that right by adding an author addendum.  Recognizing that some publishers do not allow archiving in institutional repositories, each library faculty member is encouraged to negotiate with their intended publisher to allow for open access publishing or some form of open access archiving.

  • We will submit available manuscripts or publications to ValpoScholar as soon as possible after acceptance for publication.

  • We will promote open access to all faculty on campus and encourage them to archive their scholarly works in ValpoScholar.

  • We grant to the Christopher Center Library a non-exclusive, perpetual license to archive our submitted works in ValpoScholar.

  • We grant to the Christopher Center Library the right to migrate one or more copies of our submissions to any medium or format for security and preservation purposes.