Re: Clinical Emergency Clause

[Elizabeth_R_Lorbeer@rush.edu]

Hello Julie,

Our institution has successfully inserted a "clinical emergency" clause:

"the request comes from an academic or other non-commercial, non-corporate
research library located in the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada; and
marked with the notice "urgent patient care" and requested article is
printed by Subscriber and mailed or faxed to the requesting library..."

However, I was surprised to have the publisher add Canada to the language
above.  Most publishers do not allow "urgent patient care" for
international/Canada/Mexico requests since copyright varies.  Yet, during
the Tsumami disaster, I did inquire with one publisher about filling
potential urgent requests and was told:

      We exclude international electronic ILL because we think it
      unreasonable to expect American librarians to be familiar with the
      definition of “fair use” in a multiple number of countries.  
      Having said that, we are a reasonable and responsible company.  We 
      provide free access to our content in many countries across the 
      globe.  If you have a request from a developing country you could 
      check with us. It could very well be that we allow free access for 
      the country in question.

My experience is that this type of language can be added, but only for
domestic requests.


Sincerely,
Liz Lorbeer
Manager of Collection Development
Rush University Medical Center
Chicago, IL 60612