Et tu, colleague? More bad licenses from libraries

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

What once seemed like an anomaly is starting to look like a fad.  I've
just heard from the AMIGOS consortium that, unlike every for-profit
publisher I've ever negotiated with, they "cannot"  either delete the
jurisdiction clause or change it to read "Nevada" in their membership
agreement.  Leaving aside for now the question of what "cannot" actually
means in this context (who's going to stop them?), I'm left scratching my
head, yet again, over the fact that the most intransigent license
negotiators I encounter are those from within the library profession.

As many of us have noted (and the Charleston Advisor has formally
acknowledged), netLibrary was a much more reasonable negotiating partner
when it was a profit-seeking private company than it is now as an OCLC
subsidiary.  I do not know anyone who has successfully negotiated even the
most noxious terms out of the Library of Congress' cataloging software
license.  And I recall having trouble with an ALA Publications license a
couple of years ago, but the details are fuzzy in my mind, so I'm open to
correction there.

I think there's an article in this.  Anyone having trouble negotiating
licenses with any other publishers from within the profession?  I'd also
be interested in theories as to why this is happening.  Off-list replies
are welcome -- I'll summarize for the list if interest warrants.

-------------
Rick Anderson
Director of Resource Acquisition
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
(775) 784-6500 x273
rickand@unr.edu