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UW Faculty Senate votes to support the UW Libraries’ Principles in Licensing Scholarly Resources

“The primary mission of the University of Washington is the preservation, advancement, and dissemination of knowledge.” - University of Washington Mission Statement

In support of the mission of the University of Washington, the UW Libraries states as a strategic goal to Advance Research for the Public Good and that UW research attains its greatest impact on our most pressing global challenges when we advocate for open, public and emerging forms of scholarship. (UW Libraries 2018-2023 Strategic Plan)

The scholarly publishing model based on paywalls and rationing of access, inequitable opportunities for publishing, and excessive pricing and annual price increases is not sustainable. It is not sustainable for library budgets, it is not sustainable for authors trying to publish, and it is not sustainable for the health of the scholarly ecosystem where the open sharing of knowledge is critical to progress and innovation. The UW Libraries is committed to working with publishers and vendors who share the goal of moving to a sustainable publishing model built on openness and equity.

On April 14, the UW Faculty Senate voted to approve a Class C Resolution expressing its support for UW Libraries’ Principles in Licensing Scholarly Resources and the use of these principles in negotiations with publishers and vendors of scholarly resources and empowering the UW Libraries to discontinue negotiations that conflict with these principles. The legislation, sponsored by the Faculty Council on University Libraries endorses the Libraries’ Principles and voices support for the three core values of Sustainability, Access and Equity, and Support of Scholarship and Teaching.

  • SUSTAINABILITY: The UW Libraries negotiates for terms that build and support sustainability and the open sharing of knowledge created at the University of Washington. We prioritize agreements that move past the historical pricing models that uphold artificial rationing of knowledge and we work with publishers to move towards models based on sharing. We are shifting spending away from purchasing content from proprietary, closed, for-profit scholarly information providers and increasing investments to create and support community-owned infrastructure and shared digital resources.

  • ACCESS AND EQUITY: The UW Libraries negotiates terms to preserve and further equitable access to knowledge for all faculty, researchers, and students at the University of Washington. We seek agreements that elevate voices from historically minoritized, ignored, and silenced groups. We actively negotiate for agreements that ensure equitable access for persons with disabilities and protect the privacy of researchers and their ability to conduct their research without sharing personal information. As an institution committed to advancing the public good, we continue to work toward the creation of an open scholarly ecosystem where barriers that restrict access to research and to publishing are eliminated.

  • SUPPORT OF SCHOLARSHIP AND TEACHING: The UW Libraries supports the breadth and depth of scholarship and teaching at all levels at the University of Washington. We do this by being part of a network of shared collections in research libraries worldwide that allows our researchers to reach into the collections anywhere in this network to access what they need to complete their research. The UW Libraries negotiates agreements that support sharing across this network of collections. We prioritize agreements that allow us to curate our collections in alignment with research and teaching priorities.

We are grateful for the support of our faculty colleagues and look forward to continuing to work together for a more sustainable and more equitable scholarly communication ecosystem.

For questions or more information contact: SustainableScholarship@uw.edu

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