Mineralogical Society of America
Publishing Policies (Print and Electronic)

The Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) makes its publications available in print, electronic form via the Internet, or both:

• The American Mineralogist (ISSN 0003-004x (print) ISSN 1945-3027 (online)) - in print and online both on the MSA website (http://www.minsocam.org) and through GeoScienceWorld** (http://www.geoscienceworld.org). Data tables and supplementary material for any article that has them are available at the MSA website.
• Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry (ISSN 1529-6466) - in print and online through GeoScienceWorld** (http://www.geoscienceworld.org).
• Elements (ISSN 1811-5209 (print) ISSN 1811-5217 (online)) - in print and online through the Elements website (http://www.elementsmagazine.org) and through GeoScienceWorld** (http://www.geoscienceworld.org).
• The Lattice (ISSN 1526-3746) - in print and online on the MSA website (http://www.minsocam.org). This was the society newsletter that ceased publication in 2004 and replaced by the magazine Elements.
• Geological Materials Research - online on the MSA website (http://gmr.minsocam.org/). This is now Electronic Articles in the American Mineralogist.
• Monographs and textbooks - in print

Titles, authors, abstracts, data tables, and supplementary material of American Mineralogist articles can be viewed by anyone at no cost on both the MSA and GeoScienceWorld websites. A subscription is required to view the full text of articles on both sites. MSA makes the contents of the American Mineralogist available free online on the MSA website for the years 1916-1999 (volumes 1-84).

Titles and authors of articles in the Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry are available to anyone on the MSA and GeoScienceWorld websites. Errata are posted on the MSA website and are free to anyone. A subscription is required to view the full text of articles on GeoScienceWorld. The electronic versions of Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry are not yet available on the MSA website.

Access to Elements on the GeoScienceWorld website requires a subscription to GeoScienceWorld. Access to Elements on the Elements website (http://www.elementsmagazine.org) requires either an institutional subscription to the journal or membership in one of the participating societies.

The Lattice is available to anyone for free on the MSA website.

MSA Monograps and Textbooskj are avialbe for purchase at https://msa.minsocam.org/orders.html.

Subscriptions to print + electronic versions of MSA publications are available through the society. Specific details for institutional subscriptions can be found at http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/AmMin/subscription.html. Membership for individuals can be found at https://msa.minsocam.org/membership.html

Subscriptions to electronic-only versions of MSA publications, either on the MSA or GeoScienceWorld websites, are available.

Subscribers to GeoScienceWorld may purchase paper versions of the American Mineralogist and Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry to accompany their electronic access at preferential annual subscription rates.

Publications available on the MSA website are in pdf format. These can be searched with google.com within the MSA website.

MSA publications available through GeoScienceWorld are in both pdf and html version. The html version has reference linking, downloadable high resolution figures and tables, capability to export bibliographic references to various citation managers, and searching of the full text. GeoScienceWorld is the only location wherein a user can obtain useage statistics.

Access to all electronic back issues online is included in a current subscription.

For electronic publications hosted on the MSA website authentication is the IP or range of IP addresses for institutional subscribers and ID and password for members.

Access to MSA publications hosted on GeoScienceWorld requires a subscription to GeoScienceWorld. The method of authentication is by IP Address.

If IP addresses are supplied with the new or renewal subscription, activation will be done as the order is processed. If no IP addresses are supplied with the order, the subscriber will have to send the addresses to us. There is no need for renewals to reactivate their online access each year unless their IP addresses have changed.

Organizations that network their environment with a proxy server may register the IP address of the proxy server for authentication provided they limit the access to the authorized sites and users by technical methods, such as router setting, or some other means. The proxy server must be owned by the end-user, not a subscription agency or reseller.

MSA places no restrictions on the number of concurrent users.

A site is defined as a geographical location in a specific city or locale e.g. The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. All IP addresses within the range supplied by the end-user can access the electronic version. Such a site would normally have been covered by a single subscription to the paper version.

A signed license agreement is not required for online access. However, all subscribers are expected to follow MSA's Publishing Policies described here.

If an organization discontinues its subscriptions they will have online access to the years for which they subscribed on the MSA website. The policies for GeoScienceWorld are spelled out in the subscriber's Site License Agreement.

MSA grants a grace period after subscription has expired in order for the next year's subscription to be received. The grace period is generally a time period that covers up to 2-3 issues, depending how soon the issues are published after the first of the year. However, there may be an additional fee charged for late renewals.

The MSA website does not now have the capability to provide usage reports for subscribers. Usage reports are available to subscribers of GeoScienceWorld.

The MSA site does not now have the capability for account administration by subscribers. Account Administrator sites are available for subscribers to GeoScienceWorld.

If a published paper is "retracted" by the author(s), and the situation will be handled as follows:

1. Print versions: A brief "retraction" statement will be published at the discretion of the editors. If the article is so incorrect that essentially a whole new paper must be written rather than a simple errata/retraction statement, the authors may be asked to submit a new paper by the editors, and all the normal submission rules will be followed.
2. Electronic versions: The "retraction" statement will be linked to the original electronic article. If at all possible, the searching links and table of contents links, and so on, would first take a reader to the statement of retraction. Thus, electronic articles, even when retracted, will not be deleted from the official record. As in the case of print, at the discretion of the editors the authors may submit a new paper, to be handled as
3. The editors and MSA expect that for most situations, honest errors can simply be handled with an erratum or a corrigendum. Honest differences of opinion between scientists might be handled with a "Discussion/Reply" or a "Further work" type of paper; see the full Information for Authors for details concerning these options.
4. Full ethical guidelines and expectations for publication follow peer organizations summarized by the Geological Society of America's Ethical Guidelines for Publication at http://www.geosociety.org/pubs/ethics.htm. Institutions that accept federal research money are obligated to have a research misconduct policy that is approved by one of those federal granting agencies. Cases of suspected fabrication, falsification or plagiarism must be reported to the official at the author(s) institution who is designated as the Research Integrity Officer (RIO). It is the responsibility of the institution receiving the research funds, not a publisher, to investigate any allegations concerning a published work and report to the federal agency.
5. If MSA is notified by an author's(s') institution or other organization with the authority to determine misconduct with regard to the reported work or published paper and if they have made a determination that suggests that a published paper needs to be retracted, with appropriate documentation the situation will be handled as above with the editors writing the retraction notice which will replace the original article.

Much of the material contained in Mineralogical Society of America print and electronic publications are protected under copyright and other laws of the United States, and, under international conventions, similar laws abroad. Copyright of the materials including, but not limited to, the textual material, artwork, photographs, computer software, audio and visual elements, is owned by the Mineralogical Society of America. In addition, copyright in the selection, arrangement and coordination of materials in its print and electronic publications are owned exclusively by MSA.

All materials protected by United States copyright law may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of The Mineralogical Society of America. Trademark, copyright or other notice may not be altered or removed any from copies of the content. Instructions for obtaining permission to reproduce material are given on the MSA website at http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/Permission.html.

Material from the American Mineralogist, Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, Elements, and The Lattice online on the MSA and GeoScienceWorld website may be downloaded (one machine readable copy and one print copy per page) for personal, noncommercial use only. A subscriber may not:

1. sell, distribute, license, rent, further reproduced, transmit, modify, adapt, perform, display (including adaptations/displays such as "framing"), or otherwise exploit the material, or any element of it, for any commercial purpose;
2. make the material, or any element of it, available by any means to persons other than authorized users;
3. make the material, or any element of it, available on, or by, electronic bulletin boards, news groups, Web sites, FTP or any other means of posting or transmitting material on the Internet, an on-line service or wide area network;
4. store in electronic or any other form, any significant portion of the material;
5. remove or obscure the MSA's copyright notice from the material including hard-copy print-outs;
6. use the material to create any derivative work, product or service, or merge the material with any other product, database, or service;
7. alter, amend, modify, translate, or change the material;
8. undertake any activity which may have a damaging effect on MSA's ability to achieve revenue through selling and marketing the material;
9. otherwise use the material supplied by MSA in a manner that would infringe the copyright or other proprietary rights contained within it; or
10. make the material or any part of it available by remote access to any person other than authorized users.

1. every member of staff employed by or otherwise accredited by the subscriber;
2. every student accredited to the subscriber for the purposes of full-time or part-time attendance;
3. individual members of the public registered as users of the subscriber's library or information service; and
4. individual members of the public permitted to use the subscriber's library or information services; in each case who are permitted general access to the Network by the Licensee.

Subscribers shall cause all authorized users to abide by all of the terms and conditions of these policies. In all other cases, only the subscriber is permitted to access the paid subscription service materials.

Subscribers found in violation of these policies may have immediate revocation of access to these sites, as well as any other applicable civil or criminal penalties. Similarly, sharing a subscriber password with a non-subscriber or otherwise making the paid subscription service available to third parties is strictly prohibited, and may subject the subscriber participating in such activities to immediate revocation of access to the paid subscription services; and, the subscriber and any third party, to any other applicable civil or criminal penalties under copyright or other laws.

MSA allows libraries to make a single copy of an article from their collection. The copy may be made from either the paper edition or the electronic edition. The library is not allowed to forward the electronic edition, rather the library must scan the copy they made, and send that digital copy to the requesting library.

A library is allowed to copy 5 articles from a single title per year for ILL purposes. For the 6th and succeeding copies the library must pay a copyright fee to the Copyright Clearance Center (http://www.copyright.com/).

If the library supplies articles for for-profit clients, such fulfillment is counted separately from the above and the copyright fee must be paid for each article.

For MSA, open-access means the full text of an article in the journal is made free to anyone from the moment it is published. MSA will provide open-access to any article posted on the MSA website or on GeoScienceWorld for which an author pays the $250 per page creation cost. The author could link to this free access article from any other site.

Self-archiving and institutional repositories means the accepted article in any version is posted and made available on another institution's website, presumable for free to anyone. MSA will permit and, if needed, provide a pdf file for self-archiving of any article for which an author pays the $250 per page creation cost. The organization is encouraged to link to the article on the MSA site, rather than hosting the file themselves.

The US National Institutes of Health's (NIH) requests any author whose research received any direct support from NIH-funding to submit their accepted, but not necessarily edited, manuscripts related to that research to PubMed Central, the digital library maintained by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) within 12 months of acceptance. PubMed Central will post the paper within 12 months of the final publication date. This new policy is voluntary. Although this new policy will only affect NIH-funded research, and very few MSA members or publications, it will probably influence the future of publication and dissemination practices for all federally-funded scientists, publishers and funding agencies. MSA added the following to the American Mineralogist, Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, and Elements copyright assignment forms we ask authors to sign:

"Journal acknowledges that Author retains the right to provide a copy of the accepted manuscript as returned to MSA to NIH for public archiving in PubMed Central. MSA asks that the statement be added that deposited material was published in American Mineralogist (or Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry or Elements) and include the reference to the orginal MSA publication.