License Agreements for Nature Monthlies and Reviews available

[kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de]

Yesterday, the missing license agreements - Academic and Government - for
the Nature Sister Journals (= Nature Monthlies) and Nature Reviews
Journals have been posted on the Nature website, cf.

http://www.nature.com/help/sitelicences/licence_agreements/index.html

Note that there now is one common license agreement for the Monthlies and
Reviews (and for Corporate Licensees, even a common license agreement for
all Nature titles).

Don't look for any changes in license clauses that already met criticism
in the case of the revised Nature Site License. There are none. Most of
the language in the license agreement is identical to the version of
September 2000.

The old and new versions differ only in the Schedule, i.e. in the Licensed
Material (for the Monthlies, former references to a restriction of
licensed content to the 'Research article section' have been removed) and
in the replacement of the term 'Site' (meaning more a physical location)
by the somewhat ambiguous notion 'Department'. (It seems that the wording
has been chosen to guarantee continuity and close correspondence between
previous and present license agreements for the Monthlies and Reviews.)

Furthermore, "Staff and Students" are introduced as relevant parameters
(cf. also the added paragraphs 5.3 and 5.4), here defined as 'the full
time students enrolled or accredited to the Department and the full time
teaching and research staff employed within or otherwise accredited to the
Department'. --Perhaps this is a misunderstanding, but it could indicate
that it is possible to ignore the overall (Life and Physical) Sciences FTE
and just restrict access to a specific department if that is wanted. (Once
again, the license summaries provided by the NPG here are different from
the actual license agreements.) If you really want a campus-wide license
you probably will have to include several departments, resp. all "Sciences
departments".

>From what I hear from other libraries, prices for Monthlies and Reviews
have come down considerably. Compared to the first new pricing proposal
from Nature made public on their server for a short time at the end of
April, prices for single title purchases to Monthlies & Reviews halfed,
and prices for the complete suite of 7+3 titles decreased by 30%. For the
smallest sites (< 1000 FTE), I have been told that prices are subject to
negotiation and decided on a case-by-case basis.

Best Regards,
Bernd-Christoph Kaemper, Stuttgart University Library