If you are put off by the endless jeremiads of your weary archivangelist
http://poynder.blogspot.com/2007/07/oa-interviews-stevan-harnad.html
then please do listen to the gentler, ecumenical voice of the
Prophet Peter!
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_07_08_fosblogarchive.html#2479603730002848815

Here is Peter Suber's comment in Open Access News on University of Illinois
Provost Linda Katehi's letter to UI faculty:
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/blog/scholcomm/archives/2007/07/provost_letter.html
encouraging them to use the CIC author addendum [on retaining copyright]
as recommended by the CIC Statement on Publishing Agreements and an Addendum
to Publication Agreements for CIC Authors.
http://www.iun.edu/~facorg/meeting07/U10-2007.pdf

    Peter's Comment.
    "The U of I is right to encourage faculty to use the CIC author addendum.

    "But in the June SOAN,
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/06-02-07.htm#balancing
    I hoped that CIC institutions would go further:

    "...[I]t's not clear what form the encouragement will take.  Will it
    be limited to the abstract encouragement of passing a resolution
    in the Faculty Senate?  Or will there also be some case-by-case
    encouragement?  ...In a standoff between a publisher and faculty
    member, what will universities do to support their faculty member?

    "Here's the bigger question:  What else will these universities do to
    encourage OA archiving?  If they take the step of adopting an author
    addendum, they should also adopt a policy to require OA archiving.
    If permission is not a problem (because publishers already give it
    or because an addendum worked), what will these institutions do to
    insure that faculty postprints are actually archived? ...

    "The permission problem is worth solving, but we have to remember that
    solving it is only a means to the end of OA.  Universities adopting
    an author addendum are moving in the right direction, but they must
    keep moving.  Permission for OA isn't yet OA itself...."

    Peter Suber, OA News
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_07_08_fosblogarchive.html#2479603730002848815

Now, for the historically minded, here are some of the unminded jeremiads
on this very point from the American Scientist Open Access Forum,
starting as early as 1998, to the effect that while copyright retention
is desirable, it is not a prerequisite for OA or OA self-archiving,
and hence that university self-archiving policy should *not* be
contingent on retaining copyright. It is much harder to get authors
to agree to and comply with a mandate to retain copyright (because it
[appears to] put their choice of journal at risk) than it is to get
authors to agree to and comply with a mandate to deposit their accepted
final drafts in their institutional repositories (the ID/OA) mandate.
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html Therefore
the weaker mandate should be adopted first, rather than the stronger
one. (Copyright retention can wait: OA should not.)

Here are some prior AmSci Forum threads on this topic:

    "Copyright retention is not a prerequisite for self-archiving"
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5195.html
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5604.html
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2556.html
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0079.html

    "What Provosts Need to Mandate"
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3241.html
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5626.html
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2550.html

    "Optimizing MIT's Open Access Policy"
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5244.html
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/6475.html
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4483.html

    "Cornell's Copyright Advice: Guide for the Perplexed Self-Archiver"
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5664.html

    "How to Word Institutional Self-Archiving Policy"
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4542.html
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3812.html
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2889.html
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0732.html

    "US University OA Resolutions Omit Most Important Component"
    http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4516.html

Stevan Harnad
AMERICAN SCIENTIST OPEN ACCESS FORUM:
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/

UNIVERSITIES and RESEARCH FUNDERS:
If you have adopted or plan to adopt an policy of providing Open Access
to your own research article output, please describe your policy at:
    http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html

OPEN-ACCESS-PROVISION POLICY:
    BOAI-1 ("Green"): Publish your article in a suitable toll-access journal
    http://romeo.eprints.org/
OR
    BOAI-2 ("Gold"): Publish your article in an open-access journal if/when
    a suitable one exists.
    http://www.doaj.org/
AND
    in BOTH cases self-archive a supplementary version of your article
    in your own institutional repository.
    http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
    http://archives.eprints.org/
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/