BioOne Joins SERU Pilot Program

[Lauren Kane <lauren@arl.org>]

BioOne Joins SERU Pilot Program
Washington, DC (July 30, 2007)

BioOne (www.bioone.org) is delighted to announce its 
participation in the innovative SERU (Shared Electronic Resource 
Understanding) pilot program, sponsored by NISO 
(http://www.niso.org/committees/SERU/).  BioOne joins an 
inaugural group of publishers, libraries, and consortia that have 
agreed to use SERU on a trial basis.

SERU seeks to address the problematic status of many 
publisher-library subscription transactions, currently dominated 
by extensive negotiated licenses. These formal licenses increase 
the cost of sales for both parties, delay researchers' access to 
content, and perpetuate the often-adversarial nature of the 
subscription economy.

As such, many publishers and libraries have called for a new, 
best practices approach that streamlines and simplifies the 
e-resource acquisition process, while still protecting copyright.

SERU has answered this call with a Recommended Practice document 
for Trial Use that outlines a "framework of shared understanding 
and good faith."  The Statements of Common Understanding for 
Subscribing to Electronic Resources include definitions of 
acceptable and inappropriate use, confidentiality and privacy, 
service and performance expectations, and archiving and perpetual 
access standards.

"The SERU license simplifies the subscription transaction and 
reduces costs for both publishers and libraries, and, in doing 
so, fits perfectly into BioOne's mission and market niche. We're 
delighted to be a part of such an important program," said BioOne 
Executive Director, Susan Skomal.

Going forward, libraries and consortia in North America wishing 
to subscribe to BioOne will be given the option to forego a 
traditional licensing agreement and operate under SERU 
Recommended Practices. BioOne's sales and marketing partner in 
North America, Amigos Library Services (www.amigos.org) will 
continue to manage these transactions. Interested libraries 
should contact Carrie Esch at cesch@amigos.org with any 
questions.

###

About BioOne
Established in 2000, BioOne (www.bioone.org) is the product of 
innovative collaboration between scientific societies, libraries, 
academe, and the private sector, who seek a sustainable, 
mission-driven alternative to commercial publishing. BioOne 
brings to the Web

a uniquely valuable aggregation of the full-texts of high-impact 
bioscience research journals. Most of BioOne's titles are 
published by small societies and non-commercial publishers. 
BioOne provides integrated, cost-effective access to a thoroughly 
linked information resource of interrelated journals focused on 
the biological,
ecological, and environmental sciences.

About NISO
Founded in 1939 and incorporated in 1983, NISO, the National 
Information Standards Organization, is a non-profit association 
accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). 
NISO identifies, develops, maintains, and publishes technical 
standards to manage information in the changing and ever-more 
digital environment.

NISO standards apply both traditional and new technologies to the 
full range of information-related needs, including retrieval, 
re-purposing, storage, metadata, and preservation. The leaders of 
over 70 organizations in the fields of publishing, libraries, IT 
and media serve as its voting members, while hundreds of experts 
and practitioners serve on NISO committees and as officers of the 
association.

About Amigos Library Services
A not-for-profit, membership-based organization, Amigos Library 
Services (www.amigos.org) is one of the largest library service 
networks in the nation, consisting of over 750 libraries and 
cultural institutions located primarily in the southwestern 
United States.  Members utilize a comprehensive array of 
technology-based services through Amigos.  Amigos is also a 
provider of marketing and sales support for scholarly content 
publishers and aggregators throughout the United States and 
Canada.