Annee Phil. followup.

["James J. O'Donnell" <jod@georgetown.edu>]

Thank you all, first of all, who wrote with very helpful messages when I
asked a couple of weeks ago for concrete cases of institutions and classes
being disenfranchised from L'Annee Philologique by the publisher's
insistence on French legal jurisdiction.  Let me ask that if anyone has
not written to me (jod@georgetown.edu), I'd still be glad to hear from
you:  that is, if you represent or know of substantial groups of users who
would be unable to get access to L'Annee Phil. if the jurisdiction clause
is insisted upon.

There have been a variety of ideas presented by some of my correspondents
in this process for getting around the impasse.  I list some without
prejudice and would be happy to hear comments (especially comments on any
that are still showstoppers):

1.  Sign it and cross your fingers.  (I think that works only if you have
    some legal possibility of signing it, not the case for most state
    universities.)
2.  Remove the clause entirely and fight it out *only* if a case arises
    (the chances of which are fiercely unlikely).
3.  Write it so that in case of legal action, the jurisdiction is that of
    the defendant (this to discourage excessive litigiousness).
4.  Persuade the publisher to outsource delivery to one of the big
    aggregators of e-databases that already has a more robust business and
    technical system in place and that is able to be more flexible on the
    jurisdiction matter.

I do not know at this point what tack the American Philological
Association will take in approaching the publisher, and we have some back
channels through which to have arms' length conversation beforehand in the
hope of getting a good resolution this fall.

Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown University