Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship
| Winter 1998
|
---|
URLs in this
document have been updated. Links enclosed in {curly
brackets} have been changed. If a replacement link was located,
the new URL was added and the link is active; if a new site could not be
identified, the broken link was removed. |
Conference Reports
STS Heads of Science & Technology Libraries Discussion Group:
Notes from ALA MidWinter Meeting, January 11, 1998
Nan Butkovich
Physical Sciences Library
Pennsylvania State University
njb2@psu.edu or njb@psulias.psu.edu
Licensing of Electronic Publications
The Heads of Science & Technology Libraries Discussion Group had a very lively
time in New Orleans. After a six course Louisiana dinner at Tujaques in the
French Quarter and a brisk walk back to the Hilton for the meeting, we discussed
licensing of electronic publications. Forty people attended, and we had
presentations by Susan Barclay, Project Manager for the American Chemical
Society's Electronic Projects, and Ann Okerson, Associate University Librarian
at Yale, followed by a very spirited discussion.
Barclay stated that ACS is committed to listening to its customers, and that
they haven't had any complaints about the products themselves. She announced a
new journal pricing plan, Option B, which was developed as a result of
complaints that earlier pricing plans were prohibitively expensive.
Information may be found on the web at {http://pubs.acs.org/journals/prices98/planb_explain.html}
ACS believes that its e-journal licenses have a wide degree of flexibility, such
as the ability to choose titles, rather than having to purchase a package;
articles available as soon as publishable, which can be as much as 2-11 weeks
before they appear in print; and that both Class C subnet and site licenses
are available. Barclay also discussed new challenges, such as how to handle proxy
servers; concurrent users; design issues; sales of individual articles; cookies;
consortia; archiving; and aggregators.
Okerson observed that licenses are only partly concerned with copyright
and that they have more to do with rules of use and relationships between users and
producers. Licenses may have provisions negating copyright. The burgeoning
numbers of licenses cause many problems: scalability; the need to
define users and uses; clarification of the roles of consortia, subscription
agents and aggregators; archiving and the need for perpetual access; and
pricing models.
Licenses are labor-intensive, so scalability is a problem. How do we handle the
surge of licenses produced as more and more products become electronic? Do
subscription agents really negotiate the best deal, or can we do better on our
own? Consortia can solve some problems, but some institutions jump from one
consortium to another in order to get the best deal. With aggregators what
will we do with package items that we don't want?
Some observations from the general discussion:
- Licensing won't go away, although the need for definitions will change.
- Although licenses have traditionally been negotiated by both parties, there
seems to be an increase in the "click" type which leave no room for
negotiation.
- Concern was raised regarding licenses based on a terminal-by-terminal basis.
Publishers want to maintain a viable subscription base and so are trying
different pricing and use models to accommodate different types of users.
- Many protested licenses which permit institutional subscribers to get a
publication in print but not in electronic form, especially when the print
indicates that additional data is present in the electronic version.
- ACS isn't in a position to deal with perpetual access yet. The question was
broadened to other publishers in the audience. Someone from IEE said that
they would negotiate virtually any feature in their licenses.
- Does any money generated by ACS publications go to support member services?
No, and no membership money goes to support publications. A very small
amount of publications money may be used to promote the chemical sciences.
- Nondisclosure statements in licenses were greatly resented by the audience.
Examples were given of the ambiguity of nondisclosure; who has the need to
know and who doesn't can vary considerably and must be negotiated.
- Regarding the Dutch statement on electronic licensing (Science, vol. 278,
November 28, 1997, p. 1558): the statement begins with print and seemed uneven
in places. It also has a level of specificity which is well-intentioned but
is probably not feasible.
- All Science Librarians should take responsibility for becoming knowledgeable
about licenses and review them with colleagues in order to learn their
nuances and style. It is part of the selection process for acquiring many
titles and information products.
The meeting ended with suggestions for future meetings:
- More on licensing; perhaps with commercial publishers.
- Explore the situation of remote users, who seem to be harmed by site licenses; how
distance learning conflicts with licensing.
- Move toward consensus on our part regarding what we want to see in products
and under what conditions we are willing to accept the products.
- There is currently no standard generic contract. Maybe some suggestions
regarding the development of a model contract for electronic products.
- The importance of first sale and its impact on electronic products.
- What new technology do we need to provide? Hardware, software, etc. Digital
object identifiers.
Two additional suggestions have been made since the meeting:
- New library construction and its impact on sci/tech collections and services
(Lynn Sutton at Wayne State for example)
- How sci/tech libraries are confronting space issues: annexing, compact
shelving, etc.
Anyone having any comments on these ideas or other suggestions, please contact
Nan Butkovich (njb2@psu.edu or njb@psulias.psu.edu),
Julia Gelfand (jgelfand@uci.edu), or Bart Lessin
(aa3327@wayne.edu).