There are no standard practices when it comes to negotiation of book contracts among Research Performing Organisations (RPOs) in the Netherlands. While some libraries have taken a more proactive approach in communicating with publishers on behalf of their authors, support available to authors has largely been ad hoc. Researchers reach out to their Publishing Support/Scholarly Communications Advisors or Copyright Offices, seeking counsel, once a draft contract has been sent to them.
While well-resourced libraries can negotiate directly with publishers on behalf of authors and advocate for more favorable terms, the degree of involvement of librarians in the process of book negotiations depends on varying degrees of time and resource availability of the institution. It is, for most libraries, unrealistic to hope to support all individual authors with their contracts.
Alternatively, some less resource-intensive practices can still make an impact and are worth considering.
Capacity-building
Workshops: Consider ‘Demystifying Publishing Contracts’ workshops as a standard service offered by the library, targeting research groups that typically publish books. This may involve hands-on workshops where partcipants learn to identify some good/bad clauses in standard publisher contracts and/or bring their own questions/contracts for discussion.
Training: Instead of targeting individual researchers alone, empower research/grant advisors in faculties or those with direct and regular contact with researchers, equipping them with a foundational understanding of copyrights, licenses, and common publication clauses.
Some subjects that are relevant to the contract trainings and workshops include:
- Copyright Ownership and Transfer: Understanding who holds the copyright and the implications of transferring or licensing it. Some examples include Leiden University’s copyright training for PhD: Copyright and Open Access for PhDs – Leiden University (universiteitleiden.nl) and UC Berkeley’s training Copyrighting Dissertations: Fall 2024 copyright and publishing workshops with the Library’s Scholarly Communication & Information Policy office – UC Berkeley Library Update
- Moral Rights: How moral rights protect an author’s reputation and integrity of their work, and whether they can be waived or retained.
- Exclusive vs. Non-Exclusive Licenses: Differences and implications of each for future publications.Note that Creative Commons also offers recurring online and on-demand in-person training on licenses.
- Royalty Structures and Derivative Rules: Different royalty models and provisions for translations/adaptations.
- Use of AI and TDM: Rights, risks, and opportunities for authors. KR21 Principles on Artificial Intelligence, Science and Research – Knowledge Rights 21 and EASE UK’s recommendations on use of AI in scholcomm are some useful resources on the topic. Additionally, Creative Commons’ in-progress Preference Signals for AI might be insightful.
Templates and Resources
Librarians can offer contract amendment templates, such as author addenda (for example: Sample Addendum | Harvard OSC), to suggest modifications that enable authors to retain rights like self-archiving or sharing preprints. Note that right retention for books is not well-developed in the Netherlands and is mostly provisional. Please refer to the sections on Licenses and Self-archiving as well as Contracting and copyright | OA Books Toolkit (oabooks-toolkit.org) for further details.
What do you usually advise authors to negotiate before signing a book contract? What additional resources do you have at your institution?
