NISO Issues Best Practices for Shared E-Resource Understanding (SERU)

[Cynthia Hodgson <chodgson@niso.org>]

Slightly more than one year after the Shared E-Resource 
Understanding (SERU) Working Group was formed, the National 
Information Standards Organization (NISO) has issued "SERU: A 
Shared Electronic Resource Understanding" as part of its 
Recommended Practice series (NISO-RP-7-2008). The SERU document's 
publication follows a six-month trial use period, during which 
time librarians and publishers reported on their experiences 
using the draft document.

SERU offers publishers and librarians the opportunity to save 
both the time and the costs associated with a negotiated and 
signed license agreement by agreeing to operate within a 
framework of shared understanding and good faith.

"SERU is a wonderful example of librarians and publishers working 
together to create a new option for electronic resource 
transactions that is convenient and legal," said Working Group 
co-chair Karla Hahn, Director, Office of Scholarly 
Communications, Association of Research Libraries. "Small 
publishers, especially, will be able to use SERU to reduce 
licensing costs making them more competitive and easier for 
librarians to work with."

Co-chair Judy Luther, President of Informed Strategies, added, 
"Based on a decade of licensing experience, SERU represents 
widely adopted practices already in place in North America, and 
is both library and publisher friendly."

"The SERU Working Group developed a document that addresses the 
key issues in a manner that is nuanced and creative, and they did 
it in record time," said Todd Carpenter, NISO's Managing 
Director. "The feedback we received during the trial use period 
was uniformly positive." The trial use period ran from June 20 
through December 20, 2007.

The Recommended Practice and a SERU FAQ are available from the 
SERU webpage (http://www.niso.org/committees/SERU/). In 
accordance with plans laid out by the SERU Working Group, which 
concluded its work with publication of the Recommended Practice, 
NISO will produce additional materials to help publishers and 
libraries adopt a SERU approach, maintain a registry of 
participants, and continue to promote, educate, and plan for 
regular review and evaluation of SERU.

Note: This announcement was cross-posted to multiple lists.

Cynthia Hodgson
NISO Technical Editor Consultant
National Information Standards Organization
Email: chodgson@niso.org
Phone: 301-654-2512