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RE: ILL & Licensing questions

David,

I think asking people to publish their contracts publicly *could* indeed
lead to a lot of frantic arm waving, but I'm really only suggesting that
ILL terms be shared. Even though they may not be absolutely consistent, it
seems reasonable enough that they should be. I can't imagine that the ILL
conditions would ordinarily be thought to provide special negotiated
benefits. On the other hand, the publisher terms and conditions might
change, and it would be useful to have an up to date site where the
current terms/restrictions are posted. They are difficult enough to track
individually that it might be helpful to everyone if there were a
clearinghouse of ILL practices from vendor to vendor. We could even
fantasize that such a central site of posted understandings might
encourage vendors to emulate some of the better terms.

Carole

At 11:25 PM 2/2/2001 -0500, David Goodman wrote:
>Carole, You ought to be right, but unfortunately it is not the case that
>ILL practices are in fact consistent. Several publishers have on occassion
>been willing to extend increased priviledges on an experimental basis to
>certain libraries. (and also sometimes not to give it to those libraries
>who dont know enough to ask.)
>
>I have also found it unbelievably difficult to persuade publishers not to
>treat everything in every contract as confidential, even when we all know
>that they are standard terms.
>(I am cynical enoguh to suspect that's because they think they can delude
>each of us that we are getting a unique bargain.)
>
>Perhaps the first step would be for those public institutions in states
>where by law no contract with a public agency is confidential to simply
>publish all their contracts on
>the web.
>
>Confidentially, I have also heard of some ILL people who simply wont be
>bothered. That's not the publishers fault.
>
>> 
>> Carole Richter
>> Electronic Resources Coordinator
>> University of Notre Dame Libraries
>> (219)631-8405
>> richter.8@nd.edu