(CEIRC) Statement of current & preferred practices for purchase of electronic information

CAUL Electronic Information Resources Committee (CEIRC) Statement of Current Perspective and Preferred Practices for the Selection and Purchase of Electronic Information Complete Version

Updated 28 April, 1999

This document amends the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) Statement for local conditions. The structure and headings of this document align with the authorised ICOLC Statement that provides the template for this project. It may be found at: http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/statement.html

III. Preferred Practices in the Emerging Electronic Information Environment.

A. Contract Negotiations.

1. Providers should not preclude libraries from working through consortia to seek advantageous pricing or other special arrangements by writing contracts only with individual institutions and not with consortia.

2. All terms and conditions should be negotiated and clearly stated in the contract. Hidden charges, after-the-fact retroactive charges, changes in content without prior notification, or any other changes in commitment are not acceptable without re-negotiation.

3. Non-disclosure language, if necessary, should not preclude library consortia from sharing pricing and other significant terms and conditions with other consortia.

B. Pricing.

1. Recognizing that libraries have limited new funds to invest in e-information (including electronic journals), and that providers are not yet providing fully debugged and client-ready electronic products (especially electronic journals), providers should not engage in excessive pricing during the current period of experimentation. Therefore: a. Consortia and their libraries should not be asked by providers to pay for undelivered features.

b. Libraries should not be charged high premiums for essentially development level (beta) products that often do not meet basic client needs.

c. Providers should not expect libraries to pay at present the entire cost of their research and development to bring new electronic products to market. These costs should be shared by the company shareholders and should be amortized by the provider so current prices for electronic information are sufficiently affordable to encourage experimentation and ultimately widespread use. This strategy will offer providers a better long term revenue stream from which to recover their research and development costs.

d. Libraries should have the option to purchase the electronic product without the paper subscription, and the electronic product should cost less than the printed subscription price.

2. Consortia and their member libraries are diverse and have different needs, funding structures, and governance. To meet these differing needs during this current period of experimentation, providers are strongly encouraged to offer multiple and flexible economic models. As libraries and providers gather experience, information, and understanding of the electronic information environment, a richer array of options and solutions should be provided. 3. Bundling electronic and print subscriptions should not be the sole pricing option for purchasing e-information. For example, licenses and purchase agreements for electronic journals should not be premised upon a fixed base year expenditure for purchase of information or contain "no cancellation" clauses that require the library to continue paying for print subscriptions to be able to obtain the electronic version.

C. Access, Archiving, Systems and Licenses.

1. Electronic files (e.g., electronic copies of journal articles) should be available before, or no later than, the publication of the article in its print format. Significant delays in availability (e.g., of 6 weeks) substantially depreciate the value of electronic publication unless significant data enhancement is added.

2. The provider should grant to the consortium and its member libraries a perpetual license when the consortium purchases the content. That perpetual license must be transferable should the consortium or library wish to change providers, agents or vendors, or to switch from obtaining information from the provider’s Web site to local or regional mounting.
a. Consortia and their member libraries should be allowed to take reasonable steps to archive content that they purchase or lease (e.g., to make backup copies).

b. When an information provider gives access to data from its Web site (rather than through local mounting of data), the provider should guarantee perpetual availability of the content which can continue to be used as technology changes. This availability need not obligate the provider to realtime access. For example, it may be possible to provide the consortium with copies of data files in an appropriate format, escrowing of data files, or other appropriate means.

3. Consortia or libraries that wish to mount information locally and on mirror sites should be allowed the option to do so on the system of their choice. The licensed content should be portable to all major computing platforms and networked environments. All systems and data should comply with appropriate standards as used by libraries (e.g., Z39.50, MARC format). Standard "off-the-shelf" hardware and software solutions are highly preferred to proprietary solutions.

4. Libraries and consortia should have complete flexibility to choose the format in which they wish to receive and store information. Electronic data (bibliographic data, abstracts, and full-text) should be available in multiple formats, e.g., real PDF, HTML, and SGML. The resolution of all images should be at a level appropriate to the material, with at least 600 dpi employed for detailed scientific photographs, data, etc.

5. Licenses should not limit the right of a library or a consortium to integrate the data into local system infrastructures and information services.

6. Access for training purposes should be permitted in addition to the usual restrictions eg number of simultaneous users.

7. Providers should guarantee reasonable access and support, taking in to consideration international time differences.

D. Content, and Management Data, and Use.

1. Given that e-information provides library clients with the new capabilities and value-added features of the electronic format, providers should not place any undue restrictions or burdens on individual authorized use, such as restrictions on downloading, storing, local printing, use of information for classroom purposes, or electronic reserves. a. Licenses should permit the "fair use" of all information for non-commercial, educational, instructional, and scientific purposes by authorized users, including unlimited viewing, downloading and printing, in agreement with the provisions in current copyright practices as applicable in the country of origin. Providers should allow e-information (such as electronic copies of journal articles) to be used to generate copies (whether in print or electronic form) for non-commercial interlibrary loans between two <academic> libraries in support of their teaching, learning and research missions.

b. Libraries should commit to taking reasonable steps to prevent misuse or abuse by clients and to work with the providers as appropriate to stop abuse should it occur. However, license or purchase agreements must not place liability on the licensing/purchasing institution or on consortia for the misuse of content or the product by an individual user. Neither the consortium nor its libraries should be liable for breach of the terms of the agreement by any authorized user as long as the library or consortium did not intentionally assist in or encourage such breach to continue after having received notice by the provider of an actual breach having occurred.

c. Walk-in use by clients who are not formally affiliated with the institution should be included by the provider in the base contract as part of the permitted user group taking in to consideration any exclusion from use of AARNet under the Australian Telecommunications Act 1997.

2. Agreements with publishers must guarantee individual libraries the right and the opportunity to measure use and to gather the relevant management information needed for collection development. Consortia and their libraries must be allowed to share basic management information about the provider’s product. For example, a provider should be willing to generate for every library in a consortium both composite data about the use of the product and itemized statistics of electronic journal use at both the journal title and article level.

3. It is in the best interests of information providers to gather and share data considered by consortia and their libraries to be necessary for consortial and institutional decisionmaking. These data will enhance provider and institutional understanding in the emerging e-information environment.

4. The anonymity of individual users and the confidentiality of their searches must be fully protected.

5. Information providers should not maintain information about individual or institutional use that would violate the other national and international library organization principles (such as those of the American Library Association) on the ethical use of information or on confidentiality and privacy.

6. In cases where the provider is generating full text files
(e.g. electronic journals), MARC bibliographic records for each title should be provided.

E. Authentication. Information providers should be flexible as to the acceptable mechanisms for authentication or validation of users (e.g. IP addressing, PIN).

F. Information providers should be flexible about the definition of a site, providing institution-wide access regardless of the location of authorised users. Authorised users include bonafide students, faculty, staff and affiliated researchers regardless of their physical location (eg distance education students.)

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