Branch 'campuses' in the Gulf - digest

[Mark Muehlhaeusler <mpm97@georgetown.edu>]

Dear All,

Thank you for the many responses to my query regarding site 
licensing for overseas offices and branch libraries. I a sure 
some of you are interested in a brief digest of some of the most 
interesting posts, which is given below (extracts only , 
anonymous). This is a selection only, but I thoroughly appreciate 
all the replies I received.

To sum up, most academic libraries try to negotiate single-site 
licenses, and are very often successful; however, much of their 
bargaining power depends on the institutional setup, and the size 
of the branch as compared to the main library.

In a few, isolated instances, libraries have had to pay 
additional charges (either a small percentage or a full 
subscription), or even obtain a separate license. This would 
appear to be the exception rather than the rule.

The contributions by non-library members are particularly 
revealing: it seems that vendors are much more persistent in 
their dealings with hospitals, and private foundations than they 
are with universities. That may be a reflection of limited 
materials budgets in academic libraries: as one respondent 
remarked, vendors would effectively price themselves out of the 
academic market if they were to charge universities for every 
single geographic location.

All this goes to prove that in our licenses, we need to define 
'site' by IP range, and users by their affiliation, not their 
geographic location (walk-ins excepted).

Again, thanks to all for your valuable feedback.

Best, Mark

----

DIGEST:

"Our Qatar campus is considered a part of the US campus and we 
share access to all of our database subscriptions.  We have one 
vendor who insisted the Qatar campus be a separate entity and we 
went ahead and separated the Qatar campus from the main 
subscription.  We haven't had any probems with ANY other 
vendor/publisher.  I would say that each institution has their 
own arrangements with publishers.  Whoever told you we all follow 
the same formula is wrong."

"We've been able to make the case that our Qatar campus is part 
of our University -- their faculty are our faculty, they receive 
degrees from us -- with most of our vendors (it probably helps 
that the FTE on the campus is only around 400). But we have had a 
few stubborn vendors that have refused to see things our way. In 
some instances, we've had to sign a multi-site license. In others 
-- [...] is the one I can think of off the top of my head -- 
we've had to have a separate license and purchase an additional 
seat for our Qatar campus."

"We are not a university, but we do have offices abroad that work 
through our IP (one in Qatar, as a matter of fact).  Many of our 
vendors license per IP, but some only license our US sites as a 
group, and a few license by individual site which just makes us 
tremendously angry.  We usually can't negotiate out of it and we 
need the resource, but we make a huge ordeal for them every year 
in an attempt to educate."

"The Clinic has a hospital in Florida, outpatient clinics in 
Nevada & Toronto, and is building a hospital in Abu Dhabi. These 
sites usually are each treated as separate sites with just a few 
exceptions."

"For all this, there is the suspicion that the is an evolving 
area and that current practice is likely to change especially as 
campuses overseas grow and more campuses are opened in markets 
that publishers have themselves earmarked for expansion."


----- Original Message -----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu <owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Wed May 25 03:52:50 2011
Subject: Branch campuses in the Gulf

Dear all,

Georgetown has a permanent presence in Education City, Qatar, that
serves as an outpost for its School of Foreign Service. Library
resources at the Main Library and in Qatar are shared.

Now a situation has arisen where a publisher insists that our small
branch in the Gulf represents a separate campus, for which a separate
license -and, of course, payment- is required.

Against our protests that the Main Library and Qatar are one 'site'
within the same IP range, the vendor holds that they: "have numerous
affiliates of American universities in the Middle East and all of the
institutions abide by this policy [of counting branch campuses as
separate entities]."

Hence my question: Is this statement true? How do your institutions
handle licenses for branch campuses, or offices abroad?

All comments, including off-list, are much appreciated.

Best,

Mark Muehlhaeusler
Director, Copyright and Licensing
Georgetown University Library