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RLI 264 1 ARL Encourages Members to Refrain from Signing Nondisclosure or Confidentiality Clauses Tstrongly encourage ARL member libraries to refrain from signinghe ARL Board of Directors voted in support of a resolutionintroduced by its Scholarly Communication Steering Committee to agreements with publishers or vendors, either individually or through consortia, that include nondisclosure or confidentiality clauses. In addition, the Board encourages ARL members to share upon request from other libraries information contained in these agreements (save for trade secrets or proprietary technical details) for licensing content, licensing software or other tools, and for digitization contracts with third-party vendors. The Board adopted this position at the ARL Membership Meeting in Houston, Texas, on May 22. The resolution was prepared in response to the concerns of membership that, as the amount of licensed content has increased, especially through packages of publications, nondisclosure or confidentiality clauses have had a negative impact on For further developments in this arena, monitor the ARL effective negotiations. The Scholarly Web page on licensing Communication Steering Committee took http://www.arl.org/sc/marketplace/license/. the position that an open market will result in better licensing terms. In their discussions, the committee also noted the value of encouraging research projects and other efforts to gather information about the current market and licensing terms, such as an initiative being undertaken by Ted Bergstrom, University of California, Santa Barbara, Paul Courant, University of Michigan, and Preston McAfee, Cal Tech, to acquire information on bundled site-license contracts. A panel session on collaboration held later in the Membership Meeting included informal polls of members and the results indicated high levels of agreement and a positive commitment for making this information public when possible. “Openness, transparency, and collaborative action have been the hallmarks JUNE 2009 RESEARCH LIBRARY ISSUES: A BIMONTHLY REPORT FROM ARL, CNI, AND SPARC