Ball State University's Virtual Press

You’ve put a lot of labor-intensive time into your work or your work-in-progress. And now it is now time to authenticate this new intellectual property and begin an initial distribution of it. If this describes your situation in regards to your creative endeavor, you can make it known globally to fellow researchers, students, and faculty by having it indexed by the search engines, Google, MSN, and Yahoo!

The Ball State University Virtual Press is a powerful information dissemination service for members of the academic community. This unique information dissemination utility is hosted by the University Libraries and is located at: www.bsu.edu/library/virtualpress.

Dr. Arthur Hafner, Dean of the University Libraries, states that, “The Virtual Press offers an innovative paradigm shift in faculty and student publishing. It is one of several integral elements of the University’s research publishing distribution strategies.”

The Ball State University Virtual Press publishing model is an easy and convenient educational vehicle for faculty and students to provide global access to their scholarship and to have their names indexed by the major search engines. Whether your works are video, audio, text, graphics, or a combination of all of these, the Virtual Press can make your works Web accessible.

A sampling of materials on the Virtual Press includes:

· Ball State University All-University Marching Band CD Selections
· Ball State University Library Newsletter, ISSN 1547-7894
· Ball State University Symphonic Wind Ensemble CD Selections
· Bracken Library Matinee Musicale Highlights
· Career Center Publications
· George Wolfe: Unarmed and Dangerous?
· Jane Haynes: A Sea of Her Own: A story of whaling wives
· La Chambre du Roi Trio Selections
· Malina Schust - German Video, Spring 2007
· Mathematics Exchange, a publication of the Mathematical Sciences Department, ISSN 1550-1736
· Mid-American Journal of Business, ISSN 1935-5181
· Office of Academic Assessment and Institutional Research
· Online Art Exhibit: Prof. Marilynn J. Derwenskus
· Online Theatre Exhibit: Dr. Flo Lapin
· Student Burris Laboratory Videos
· Terry Wiedmer: Indiana's State Teacher of the Year
· The Broken Plate, Ball State University English Department’s undergraduate literary magazine, ISSN 1940-6568
· The Teacher Educator: The Official Journal of the Indiana Association of Teacher Educators, ISSN 0887-8730
· The University Libraries’ Copyright Forum, ISSN 1545-777X

There are several advantages for faculty and staff to select the Ball State University Virtual Press for disseminating their scholarship:

1. The Virtual Press does not charge members of the University community to include their scholarly works.
2. Traditional publishers require a time-consuming and possibly expensive proof of Fair Use. The University Libraries’ Copyright Office provides University community members with assistance in making a Fair Use analysis in order to invoke Fair Use.
3. Unless reviewed, traditional publishing may not allow for search engines to capture your name and paper.
4. Traditional publishing often requires you to transfer your copyright ownership of the material to them. The Virtual Press requires only that you provide the Virtual Press with the non-exclusive right to maintain a copy of your work and distribute it via the Virtual Press’s Web page.
5. You can build, add to, and subtract from your materials that are accessible through the Virtual Press since you retain control over your materials.
6. The Virtual Press provides professional personnel to continually update your page with new or revised materials.
7. The Virtual Press assures stable links to your materials and equitable access.

For additional information, or to have any of your copyright and intellectual property questions answered, please contact Dr. Fritz Dolak, The University Libraries’ Copyright and Intellectual Property Office, FDolak@bsu.edu, 765-285-5330.