Re: A question of licences and Alumni members

[Katharina Klemperer <klempjo@tiac.net>]

I feel the need to respond to this - see note interspersed:

At 01:19 PM 7/16/00 -0400, you wrote:
>One of the ways of including alumni is simply to treat them as walk-in
>users.  If alumni have continuing access to the library, they can be treated
>thus, but can only access online content from terminals in the library.
>
>Most rights holders would object to alumni rights extending to remote
>access.  After all, there is 25-33% of the total student population
>graduating every year.  And such a large and dispersed population is almost
>impossible to identify and authenticate.
>
>Besides this, why is it necessary or desirable to grant alumni continuing,
>or perpetual access?  

In the U.S., many students (and/or their parents) pay a phenomenal amount
of money for their college educations, and they feel that they deserve
good treatment in return, even after they graduate.  Colleges also
cultivate their alumni so that they will be inspired to donate even more
money to the college after they graduate.  So the alumni feel entitled,
and the colleges have a great incentive to treat their alumni very well.  
Colleges often give their alumni lifetime e-mail accounts, special alumni
web pages, and free access to their library collections.

I would *love* to be able to use my alma mater's online library resources,
and I bet the publishers would not suffer in the least.  Most alumni don't
have personal subscriptions to scholarly journals anyway (so they wouldn't
be canceling them), and those that are in academia get their online
journals through their current employer, which is also unlikely to cancel
its subscriptions.  It seems to me that publishers could include alumni in
their licenses without losing money.  Of course, they would need more
sophisticated authentication systems than most use now.

>There is a balance to be struck between the rights
>needed to ensure the institution can do its job in a proper and professional
>way, and the needs of rightsholders to manage their content in such a way
>that their businesses survive.
>
>John Cox
>John.E.Cox@btinternet.com
>www.licensingmodels.com

Katharina Klemperer, MLS
Director of Product Development for North America
HARRASSOWITZ, Booksellers & Subscription Agents
kklemperer@ottosvc.com
978-266-1776
http://www.harrassowitz.de
Library Services USA/Canada
820 University Blvd. South, Suite 4B
Mobile, AL 36609
800-348-6886


>-----Original Message-----
>m.borchert@qut.edu.au 07/13/00 07:51PM >>>
>Dear Liblicencers,
>
>
>My name is Martin Borchert. I am the Electronic Information Services
>Librarian at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia.
>
>Discussions with delegates at the IATUL Conference here at QUT last week
>indicated that some (at least) academic libraries in the US are routinely
>negotiating with suppliers of electronic products, that their Alumni
>members have perpetual access rights to those recources.
>
>This sounds like a great service to be able to offer Alumni members.
>
>My question to you is... Is it common or rarely that academic libraries
>routinely include Alumni within licence agreements, and are libraries
>generally successful in this?
>
>We currently do not include Alumni in our negotiations, but it sounds very
>worthwhile.
>
>Any advice, examples (within confidentiality requirements of course) or
>feelings you have on this would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Thank you and best regards,
>
>Martin
>
>*******************************************
>Martin Borchert
>Electronic Information Services Librarian
>
>ph. +61 7 3864 3470
>fax. +61 7 3864 5539
>m.borchert@qut.edu.au
>
>Library Systems Group
>Level 3, D Block
>Library, Kelvin Grove Campus
>Queensland University of Technology
>Victoria Park Road
>KELVIN GROVE Q 4059
>*******************************************