White Paper: Trends in Licensing Selden Durgom Lamoureux, Electronic Resources Librarian, North Carolina State University Libraries James Stemper, Electronic Resources Librarian, University of Minnesota Libraries Introduction S ince the 1990s, publishers and libraries increasingly use license agree- ments to establish use permissions that previously had been guided by national copyright law. An important and traditional mission of the research library, to share resources with other libraries, has been affected by this shift away from copyright law to contract law. While copyright law recognizes and addresses interlibrary loan (ILL), there remains no single licensing standard for ILL. Currently, the overwhelming majority of publishers allow some form of ILL and only a minority of publishers restrict lending to the same country. Not all licenses, however, allow ILL, or allow it to the same degree. Given the importance of resource sharing to research libraries and to the communities they serve, research libraries should actively promote inclusion of ILL privileges when negotiating license agreements or add language stating that nothing in the license may restrict exceptions permitted under copyright law. If publishers see that libraries are willing to sign away key ILL rights for service to “secondary” user communities, increasing numbers may disallow ILL privileges. Under such circumstances, the result of moving to licensed electronic versions rather than purchased print versions would leave research libraries with no right to lend to or obtain non-subscribed materials from peers.1 Finally, while many publishers show a great willingness to support ILL, the language used to express permis- sions is often contradictory, suggesting a lack of understanding of ILL tools and practice. There would be tremendous value in having greater uniformity and clarity in licensing terms and conditions. ILL and Electronic Journals Informal surveys of ILL clauses in academic library licenses indicate two principle RLI 275 19 JUNE 2011 RESEARCH LIBRARY ISSUES: A QUARTERLY REPORT FROM ARL, CNI, AND SPARC
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