Follow-Up> MRI's University Internet Reporter & Marketing Resources

["Chilton Galadriel" <chilton.gala@uwlax.edu>]

Hello,

Since I posted concerns about MRI's license agreement for University
Internet Report over a year ago, MRI has made some positive changes in how
they work with academic libraries. In addition to documenting our
experience, I have also included the original post below my signature tag
for reference.

1. A Two-week trial was offered in October 2004.

2. Due to license agreement terms, we did not subscribe to the University
Internet Reporter during 2004/2005.

3. In May of this year, we received a new license agreement that
addressed *some* of our initial concerns: 
- Data can be used by faculty, staff, and students for research
  purposes.
- With negotiation, section 3-2.2 now refers to Wisconsin rather than
  Virginia law.

Under the new agreement, we did subscribe to MRI's University Internet
Reporter this fall, and the online version is certainly an improvement
compared to the CD-ROM.

4. Training access is still not offered, as all access must be through a
user's individual account.

5. The library still has significant concerns with the fact that users
have to register (i.e. submit personal information) to use this resource.
However, after discussions with Marketing faculty, it was determined that
the necessity for students to access this unique information *slightly*
overrode privacy concerns. This is certainly not an ideal situation.

So far, there have been no student complaints about privacy, but students
have said that they are intimidated by the registration process, as they
do not find it as easy as using other library resources.

Additionally, I understand from our account representative, that he is
pushing to move the University Internet Reporter to a separate server so
that IP authentication or a campus username/password is possible.

If others are willing to share, I would be very interested in hearing what
others have done, what points of the license agreement have or have not
been successfully negotiated, and if you are subscribing to MediaMark's
University Internet Reporter Reporter.

Best regards,
Galadriel Chilton

--------------------------------------
Galadriel Chilton
Electronic Resources Librarian
University of Wisconsin LaCrosse
Murphy Library
112 Murphy 
1631 Pine Street
La Crosse, WI 54601
chilton.gala@uwlax.edu

<ORIGINAL POST>

Subject: MRI's University Internet Reporter & Marketing Resources
From: "Chilton Galadriel" <chilton.gala@uwlax.edu>
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 19:45:10 EDT
________________________________________
*Apologies for multiple postings*

As many of you may know, Mediamark Research has just released their
product via the web and will no longer be offering their marketing data
via CD-ROM.

In attempting to evaluate the product, we have run into the following
concerns:

1. So far, a trial of the online product is not permitted. (I hope this is
because they just recently moved to online availability!)

2. According to the license agreement, Mediamark prohibits use of their
data to such an extent that faculty and students would not be permitted to
use data in any research, papers, journal article, etc. as no quotes from
the database are to be disseminated off campus.

3. Currently, training access for subscribers with limited simultaneous
users is not permitted.

4. Though I am still inquiring into specifics, current information
indicates that if a 1-5 user subscription were purchased than only 1-5
students/faculty would have Mediamark access, as a profile is associated
with each user and linked to a specific campus e-mail address.
(Theoretically, each account could be associated with a generic campus
e-mail, but it is not known what would be the implications.)

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