Nature confidentiality update/call for responses (apologies -- it's crossposted, and a bit long)

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

For any who are interested:

I've heard from a member of Nature's management, who informs me 
that my sales rep was mistaken when he told me that the pricing 
confidentiality language would be removed from the negotiated 
version of our license. She reiterated that "there is no more 
movement on our lawyers' part."  I again pointed out that Nature 
employs its lawyers, not the other way around, and suggested that 
Nature needs to decide for itself whether confidentiality 
provisions are worth the trouble, and then either defend that 
decision to its customers or tell its lawyers to get rid of the 
confidentiality language in the license.  I offered again to 
speak to any member of the legal staff who might be willing to 
talk with me.

She responded that really, confidentiality is needed for business 
reasons.  She feels that to give in to one library's demands and 
allow it to inform others of that concession would cause the 
entire community to demand the same concessions, and since not 
all libraries can be given the same terms, this would lead to an 
unworkable situation.  I told her that publishers conduct 
individual negotiations all the time without demanding secrecy, 
and that approach doesn't seem to be driving any of them out of 
business; I also suggested that all librarians understand that 
every library can't have the exact same terms.  We don't ask that 
we all get the same terms, but insist only that we be allowed to 
negotiate terms based on our own situations, and not be required 
to keep the results of those negotiations secret from our 
colleagues and from the public whose money we're spending.

Now, here's the reason I'm imposing this message on the list: she 
also mentioned that every time she has explained Nature's 
confidentiality provision to a librarian, the librarian has 
"understood and supported the reasoning behind it."  It seems to 
me that those of us who object to the confidentiality provisions 
need to make that fact better known to Nature.  (And, of course, 
those of us who do support Nature's stance should feel free to 
say so as well.)  Without harrassing or bombarding anyone, I 
think this might be a good time to let your sales rep know if you 
feel that Nature's confidentiality provisions are unacceptable, 
and to ask him or her to pass that information along to upper 
management.

One more note: Nature _has_ offered to add "subject to local law" 
language at the beginning of the confidentiality clause.  My 
problem with that solution is that I'm not deeply familiar enough 
with state law in Nevada to know whether there are loopholes that 
might allow us to keep some license and pricing terms 
confidential, and I'm not willing to put my library in a 
situation that would force staff to conduct a search in the 
Nevada Revised Statute whenever someone asks a question about the 
results of our negotiations with Nature, just to see whether or 
not we can answer the question.

OK, I'm done for now.  Thanks for your collective patience; I 
hope these messages have been more useful than annoying.

----
Rick Anderson
Dir. of Resource Acquisition
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
rickand@unr.edu