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The Practicality of Managing "E" Part 1: Licensing

Webinar

About the Webinar

In Part 1 of this two-part webinar, speakers covered a variety of licensing issues. A key component to the discussion was focused the critical pieces of a license, including privacy, accessibility, preservation, migration, and the negotiation process between a library and a vendor. 

For the second half of this two-part series, speakers will focus on staffing issues at different types of libraries and how staff manages integration of e-resources into workflows, as well as a discussion about whether or not to execute a reorganization. 

Event Sessions

Preparing your organization to negotiate license agreements

Speaker

With the advent of the e-information age, librarians need to be prepared to negotiate for the terms and conditions under which their library users can legally access and use electronic resources. That means understanding the research needs of your particular user community as well having a broader understanding of licensing principles. The responsibility for the actual license negotiation may fall to one or two members of your staff, but the entire enterprise should be involved in laying the groundwork for the successful acquisition of e-resources under acceptable terms. Attendees will gain an understanding of how the task of license negotiation fits into the acquisition process from beginning to end.

A Relatively Short Guide to Negotiating License Agreements

Speaker

Abbie Brown

Head, Consortial Services, Library Systems
University of Missouri University Libraries

Electronic resources have more complex licensing agreements than other library materials, and pricing is often negotiable. In a time of ongoing budget cuts and uncertainty, a librarian must be an assertive negotiator to get the best possible deal for the library. This presentation will cover strategies and resources for assertive negotiation.

Licenses and Reuse: What Does it Mean for Authors?

Speaker

Stacy Sieck

Library Communications Manager, Americas Region
Taylor & Francis Group

During this session, Stacy Sieck, Library Communications Manager for Taylor & Francis Group, will present a general overview of the key publishing licenses offered today, including a review of the rights authors retain under each. This session will also look at Taylor & Francis’ license options and an overview of the rights authors retain when publishing in a Taylor & Francis journal. Lastly, Stacy will share the results of Taylor & Francis’ Open Access surveys, focusing on the author view of Open Access and issues surrounding reuse of their work.

Event Q&A

Speakers

Abbie Brown

Head, Consortial Services, Library Systems
University of Missouri University Libraries
I struggle with negotiating reference to Canadian Law and Jurisdiction into our licenses with our US Vendors. Any suggestions on how to be more successful with this? 

Tracy Thompson: Yes, I do have a few suggestions. If you are in a university it is often the case that university counsel will not permit any university department ti enter into any contract that subjects the institutuion to the laws of a foreign jurisdiction.

If counsel will back you up on that issue you can let the vendor know that you are prohibited from signing. Another good tactic when you can't get the vendor to agree to language is to request to strike and remain silent in the agreement. 

When a vendor provides metadata, should metadata quality and maintenance be an item for negiotation?

(TT): Absolutely! Anything that is important to the licensee is fair game. The MLA addresses the issue as it relates to discovery:
b. Discovery of Licensed Materials. Licensor shall make the Licensed Materials available through Licensee’s Discovery Service System(s) for indexing and discovery purposes. Licensor shall provide to Licensee’s discovery service vendors on an ongoing basis the citation and complete descriptive metadata (including all subject headings, abstracts, and keywords), and full-text content necessary to facilitate optimal discovery and accessibility of the content for the benefit of Licensee and Authorized Users. Discovery Service Systems are defined as user interface and search systems for discovering and displaying content from local, database and web-based sources. 

Can the panelists talk more about where ONIX-PL is these days? Do you maintain any 'correspondence' associated with the back and forth of the license process? Especially those that 'explain' the meaning behind some of the language. phrases.

(TT): I advise against referring to or relying on things outside of the "4-corners of the agreement.'" If terms used within the agreement have an agreed definition, that definition should be included in a section of the agreement entitled Definitions. You should avoid what is called "incorporation by reference" which is referring to something outside of the agreement as binding.

Abbie Brown: First, yes, I save all correspondence (email) as a matter of habit, and I often need to refer back to it, even years later. I don’t generally file this with my license agreements, in either hard copy or digitally, but I do make an effort to save older emails in a way that can be accessed and searched when necessary. Second, though, if I was negotiating a license and needed clarification or interpretation of the vendor’s phrasing, language, etc., I would try very hard to get that interpretation spelled out better in the license itself, rather than planning to rely on emails or correspondence to explain it later. If this correspondence takes place later, after the license is signed, then it makes sense that you couldn’t include it in the license, and you’d want to save those emails for reference later if it should come up. But if you’re still in the negotiation stage and you’re having questions about interpretation, it’s better to have that fixed to your satisfaction at that time. 

Are there strategies you recommend for working with companies that mostly do business with other companies (e.g. sell advertising data) rather than academic libraries? Most of these seem to not be IP-based and pose significant challenges.

(TT): Yes, the first is to educate those vendors as they aren't familiar with our needs. Rely on outside resources (existing best practices, standards, guidelines of professional orgs) to make your case, so the vendor knows this isn't just the whim or idiosyncracy of one customer. Also, think about alternate strategies to reach your interest. For example, if they don't offer IP authentication and your user base demands it, perhaps they will agree to letting you host the content on your server for your users.

Have the panelists experienced licensing negotiation for content not tied to a platform, such as data via API?

Additional Information

  • Registration closes at 12:00 p.m. (ET) on September 9, 2015. Cancellations made by September 2, 2015 will receive a refund, less a $25 cancellation. After that date, there are no refunds.

  • Registrants will receive detailed instructions about accessing the webinar via e-mail the Monday prior to the event. (Anyone registering between Monday and the close of registration will receive the message shortly after the registration is received, within normal business hours.) Due to the widespread use of spam blockers, filters, out of office messages, etc., it is your responsibility to contact the NISO office if you do not receive login instructions before the start of the webinar.

  • If you have not received your Login Instruction email by 10 a.m. (ET) on the Tuesday before the webinar, at please contact the NISO office or email Juliana Wood, Educational Programs Manager at jwood@niso.org for immediate assistance.

  • Registration is per site (access for one computer) and includes access to the online recorded archive of the webinar. You may have as many people as you like from the registrant's organization view the webinar from that one connection. If you need additional connections, you will need to enter a separate registration for each connection needed.

  • If you are registering someone else from your organization, either use that person's e-mail address when registering or contact Juliana Wood to provide alternate contact information.

  • Library Standards Alliance (LSA) members receive one free webinar connection as part of their membership and DO NOT need to register for the event for this free connection. Your webinar contact will receive the login instructions the Monday before the event. You may have as many people as you like from the member's library view the webinar from that one connection. If you need additional connections beyond the free one, then you will need to enter a paid registration (at the member rate) for each additional connection required.

  • Webinar presentation slides and Q&A will be posted to the site following the live webinar.

  • Registrants and LSA member webinar contacts will receive an e-mail message containing access information to the archived webinar recording within 48 hours after the event. This recording access is only to be used by the registrant's or member's organization.