RE: Alumni Access to Electronic Resources

["David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>]

I'm a Berkeley alumnus, and I would love having access to all the
University of California online resources.

But if the UC (and Stanford) alumni had access to the databases they used
as students at educational rates, what professional in the state of
California would pay commercial rates for anything? Only those from the
less well provided for schools.

For many indexing services in particular, the much higher differential
rates paid by for-profit clients is a critical financial factor.

I think it unreasonable of a university to ask for this, and in
negotiating contracts I never did. I think it foolhardy of a publisher to
provide this, unless they expected very little non-educational use--and
then why would any alumni want it to start with?

In general, such a move would further priviledge the alumni of the richer
schools, and further marginalize the information access for the alumni of
the lesser ones. Trying to add this access is a move away from the
principles of OA.

This does not apply to state-wide or nation-wide access. Though expensive
to purchase especially from the commercial publishers, it does provide OA
for a limited area.

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of Jake Carlson
Sent: Wed 6/8/2005 7:08 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Alumni Access to Electronic Resources

Hello,

Is anyone out there providing access to library databases or other
electronic resources to alumni?  I checked the Lib-license archives and
found a threads on this subject from 2000 and 2001, but I'd be interested
in hearing about recent experiences.

I'm particularly interested in knowing what the sticking points in
negotiating a license agreement to accommodate access for alumni were and
how (if?) they were resolved.  I'd also be interested in hearing about how
the fees were structured.  For example, was the fee based on the total
number of alumni from your institution, on a percentage of the total
number (figuring that not all alumni will use the database), on actual
use, or some other means?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jake Carlson
Research Services Librarian/Coordinator of Electronic Resources
Bertrand Library
Bucknell University
AIM:  JakeCarlsonISR