Carol's mortification (Re: RE: Sage titles)

[Rick Anderson <Rick_Anderson@uncg.edu>]

Carol --

I don't think you ought to feel too bad about discussing this issue with
other librarians before bringing your concerns to the publisher.  It makes
sense to find out what other librarians' impressions and thoughts are
before complaining.  It seems to me that if publishers participate in (or
lurk on) discussion lists like LIBLICENSE-L, they should expect to see
discussions like this one taking place between their customers, sometimes
before they hear directly from those customers.  In fact, if their
over-riding concern is to facilitate access for their customers, then they
should consider themselves fortunate to have this window on their
customers' unvarnished opinions.  As you said, Carol, if you'd gone direct
to Sage with your concerns you would have been more diplomatic; maybe it
was better this way.

Rick Anderson
UNC Greensboro

______________________

On Wed, 23 Feb 2000 18:06:17 EST Carole Richter 
<Carole.J.Richter.8@nd.edu> wrote:

> Dear Vivienne,
> 
> Thanks for responding, although I hope I would have sounded a bit more
> diplomatic had I gone to you directly, as you rightly suggest I should
> have.
> 
> Here are my concerns: access to the electronic version is no longer 'free'
> if access requires a 3rd party platform that includes a substantial fee.
> OCLC access for our Sage titles would cost at least $8,000 per year, not
> including access fees for the base package which is also necessary.  
> Ebsco would be free if they were our serials vendor for Sage titles, but
> they aren't. Rowecom...it's true that we need to investigate what that
> would entail. Because Faxon is our primary serials vendor, it is possible
> that Rowecom would be an option for us. But I would most prefer to see
> either direct access provided by Sage, or as a good alternative, through a
> service such as Catchword which manages e-journal access efficiently and
> without additional charge to libraries. We are placed in an awkward
> position when faculty learn from Sage that they 'should' have free access
> to electronic versions of their journals, but when the logistics are not
> in fact free.
> 
> Licensing issues--I am not the best person to discuss the finer points of
> licensing agreements, but I'll address a couple of things that seem to me
> to be of concern:
> 
> * 1.1 Sentence 1 is fine. Re the statement "In addition, the Licensee
> shall take reasonable necessary measures to safeguard the intellectual
> property and proprietary rights of Sage and any others involved in the
> creation of the Sage Journals Online Material including the property and
> moral rights of all authors of the Sage Journals Online Material."--I
> don't recall seeing anthing quite like it before, but I think the wording
> is so broad and vague that it should be excluded completely.
> 
> Re "The Licensee shall ensure that the Notes for Authorized Users below
> are made available to all Authorized Users of the Sage Journals Online
> Material. All rights in the Sage Journals Online Material which are not
> specifically granted to the Licensee under this Licence are expressly
> reserved to Sage." I don't object to this, but we would need to know
> exactly what you expect here. Can you post this clearly at the title level
> for each journal? If not, is a statement on a 'connect page' enough?  1.2
> Re "Physical visitors using public access terminals within the Library at
> the Site, who must be made aware of the obligations of Authorized Users
> shown below..."Again, is a connect page with the information posted
> adequate awareness?
> 
> 1.3 and 1.4 RE "The Licensee may not otherwise store or permit Authorized
> Users to store the Sage Journals Online Material on any medium, transfer,
> reproduce, modify, publish or otherwise exploit the Sage Journals Online
> Material except in so far as is reasonable to exercise the rights granted
> under this Licence. Neither the Licensee nor the Authorized Users may use
> any part or parts of the Sage Journals Online Material in coursepacks or
> other collections for teaching purposes..." and also the statement re
> "Licensee may not engage in any form of competitive activity by delivering
> to any other institution copies of articles from Sage journals" ---these
> statements appear to forbid basic fair use ILL activity, although perhaps
> I am mistaken? It is unclear just how restrictive these phrases are
> intended to be. We would be much relieved to see somthing indicating that
> at least print copies of the electronic article could be transmitted under
> fair use guidelines, and that password authorized access to articles
> placed on electronic reserve would be permitted.  Because electronic
> access is based on print subscription, it may be that you are assuming
> these rights are permitted from the print environment and aren't needed in
> the electronic format. We are moving in the direction of considering not
> binding or storing print versions of journals we receive in electronic
> format (at least in some instances), and that would make it difficult to
> provide these ordinary services from the print copies.
> 
> Thank you for listening...I look forward to hearing back from you. I do
> apologize sincerely for not bringing the concerns that I felt to you
> directly.  I could certainly agree that the term abyssmal is overstating
> the case considerably.  Sincerely, Carole (somewhat mortified but still
> hoping for easier access) Carole Richter