Colleagues -
We have hit a brick wall in trying up negotiate our new license with
this not-for-profit society publisher, so I am asking if any of you have
encountered similar problems and have somehow been able to resolve your
differences. If you would prefer to answer off-list because of
confidentiality issues, it would be greatly appreciated, but I suspect
others might benefit from any advice or insight you might want to submit
to the list.
We need a new license because we wanted to take advantage of the new
positive changes regarding perpetual access, and ours was several years
old and not signed by the appropriate individual. We had subscribed to
the online package almost since its inception. At that time, there were
5 duplicate print subscriptions on campus in addition to those received
with the package, but the chemistry librarian who originally purchased
the print + online package back in 1998 did not realize the implications
for the other libraries: those 5 subscriptions could NEVER, apparently,
be cancelled in the future. The print can indeed be cancelled, as we
have now done for 2006, but we must continue to pay for those 5
subscriptions because they were in place at that time. Because we have
the online package, of course, we no longer need the duplicate print
subscriptions, although we continued to pay for them until last year,
when we thought we cancelled them via our serials vendor. We were
recently informed, however, that if we did not immediately pay for the
cancelled subscriptions, we would lose all online access. We have
attempted to work with ACS, all to no avail, and in the end, we
capitulated simply to maintain our access through the end of this year.
However, for 2006, we really wanted to lose the duplicates, which were
over in our Medical Center Library, although it was not directly
involved in the original purchase per se. We then tried to cancel all
but 1 little-used title and reorder all the remaining titles in the
current package online-only, but we were quoted an even higher price
overall. We will be moving to the Electronic Plus option in order to
support the Dept. of Chemistry's continued accreditation, but we must
still pay for 5 duplicate subscriptions.
Additionally, any new title that ACS decides to add to the package is
not optional - we are forced to pay for it whether or not we want it.
They have refused to permit us to opt-out.
There is also a clause that reads: "ACS reserves the right to
unilaterally modify or change the contents of the Terms and Conditions
without notice"? The terms and conditions of use are referenced as a
part of the sales agreement and include definitions of authorized users,
access rights and permitted use. When we asked if we could eitiher
remove the clause or at least modify it to include some notification
(60-90 days maybe?), that request was refused. The change regarding
"current" access that was made earlier this year was a positive change,
but it could have just as easily been a negative one, and ACS would not
have a legal obligation to even inform us.
Finally, we requested permission to do interlibrary loan for healthcare
employees at clinics/hospitals/pharmacies, etc. because patient care
would be involved. The ILL policy in the license prevents us from
filling loans to commercial entities, but a large number of our
requestors work in (often rural and small) for-profit healthcare
institutions in direct patient care. Moreover, even with these
licensing restrictions on our ejournals records, it would be very
difficult for our ILL staff to have to determine the commercial status
of various institutions that request ILL service from us (and think of
DOCLINE requests). We have negotiated successfully with a few other
publishers when this differentiation was made in the license, but we
were refused on this request.
Your suggestions would be very welcome. Total cancellation at this time
is out of the question.
Stephanie Nicely Aken, Electronic Resources Coordinator, University of
Kentucky Libraries
William T. Young Library
University of Kentucky
500 S. Limestone
Lexington, KY 40506-0456
phone: (859) 257-0500, ext. 2050
fax: (859) 257-0508
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