Re: Librarians and their institutional attorneys

[Andrew Waller <waller@ucalgary.ca>]

Hi.  A response to Ann Okerson's question:

At my institution, we usually draw on the expertise of university 
counsel when something new and significant, at an institutional 
level, appears in a license.  For example, some product licenses 
from the United States now feature clauses that state that 
licensed material can not be sent to authorised users in 
countries under interdiction by the American government.  As a 
library in another country, this could cause us serious 
difficulties; we have users and programs in "embargoed" nations 
and to deny these people access to the content would go against 
the basic tenets of a publicly-funded institution (equal access, 
all that).  Needless to say, when these clauses first appeared 
(approximately a year ago), we sent these to the university 
lawyers for their opinion.

Hope this helps.

Andrew

--
Andrew Waller
Serials Librarian
Collections Services
University of Calgary Library

waller@ucalgary.ca
(403) 220-8133 voice
(403) 284-2109 fax