RE: Terms subject to change

["Schwartz, Judy" <Schwartzj@trocaire.edu>]

In March of 2009, I attended a Webinar whose presenter, Paul
Wrynn, retired in 2008 from NYU's Health Sciences Libraries as
Collection Development Librarian.  Wrynn has over 30 years of
experience in libraries, including significant experience
managing electronic licenses.

Here are some of the notes I took at the time, which might be
helpful in this discussion. I am new to liblicense.

"Your license agreement is a legal binding document; review it
for risk/benefits. A really important caveat: if you agree to the
limits in licensing documents, then 'fair use' does not apply!
You want to establish reasonable ILL parameters within the
license.  The license protects the publisher(s) from abuse.
Sometimes the license requires that you mail or FAX the article
for ILL, not sending it electronically.

There needs to be two signatories on the license:  your own, in
house and the vendor. Sometimes individual journal vendors
present you with a "shrinkwrap" license - which can only be
accepted or rejected, and there is no wiggle room.  These are
different than what you signed for in the license.

When reviewing a license, and finding parts not acceptable:

*Strike out what you don't agree with, mail it back and see what
happens.

*Contact the intermediary, once the intermediary hears from many
libraries, they will (or should) more likely work on your behalf
to change the terms.

*If the intermediary is NOT helpful, run the other way.

If you (director, eresources librarian, whomever) are expected to
be the signatory, it should be written into your job
description."

Paul recommended two websites for further info:

http://nnlm.gov/mar/rsdd/elicense.html; an especially useful
title is the last one from UT:
http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/dbckfrm1.htm


Judith K Schwartz
Director of Library Services
Trocaire College - the Mercy College of WNY
Buffalo NY 14220-2094
http://library.trocaire.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Anderson
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2010 11:16 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Terms subject to change

> Seems to me that a contract that can be modified at will by one
> party isn't much of a contract.

I'd say you're right, and in fact I'm not sure terms such as
those you described in the default language would even be legally
enforceable if it came down to that.  However, if I were you I
wouldn't take any chances -- I would walk away from a purchase
rather than sign a license that doesn't bind both parties to a
defined set of performances.  I'm frankly amazed that a major
publisher would insist on such language; I've encountered
unilateral-alteration terms more than once, but I can't think of
a single time that the publisher insisted on keeping it after its
ridiculousness was pointed out.

Just my $.02,

Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dir. for Scholarly Resources & Collections
Marriott Library
Univ. of Utah
rick.anderson@utah.edu