Hi Ben

In the University of Plymouth library we are coming to the end of a year long pilot for our alternative formats service. In developing the service we used guidelines available on Publisher Lookup http://www.publisherlookup.org.uk . We also looked at the Open Rose Group's flowchart http://www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/techdis/resources/detail/learnersmatter/AltFormatChart for the processes involved and developed our own simplified version based on this.
http://www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/techdis/technologymatters/beyondtext/obtainingalternativeformats was another great source of information. I'm sure you will already be aware of these resources though.

Requesting electronic books from publishers is part of this alternative format service. We are the team in the library that supports disabled users to access library resources and we initiated this project. We liaised with colleagues from the library academic support team, the library media and IT support team, the collection services team, and the university disability service. 

The process we use is as follows:

Students are generally referred via the university disability service, but do sometimes self refer and as long as they are obviously eligible this is fine. We have involved the disability service from the outset and there were already procedures in place whereby students with disabilities are referred to us for support in the library. Our academic support team (subject librarians) are also on board and after an initial 'soft' launch we are looking ways to publicise the service more widely including using their contacts on Faculty liaison committees etc. to make academic staff aware of the issues - specifically the importance of making reading lists available as early as possible so that we have time to get hold of electronic copies of books in good time for the students concerned.

Also, before approaching the publishers for pdfs, we check for the availability of e-copies of the requested books to be purchased for the library. This is done in consultation with the subject librarian. If this is acceptable for the student it is our preferred option as it makes the book accessible electronically to all students. However it is not suitable for all print impaired disabled students due to e.g. the restrictions on the number of pages that can be downloaded at once.

Students are asked to complete a request form, which includes a copyright statement, for each item. The form also states that some publishers (generally US based) require that the student owns the book in hard copy themselves, and that they may be asked to supply proof of purchase. (UK publishers generally just require that the library owns the book).

We then check our holdings and look for the publisher's contact details on Publisher Lookup. If they are there, it is very straightforward to follow the link and send the request, either by email or by completing an online form as necessary. You know the request is going to the right person and will usually be dealt with in good time. If the publisher is not listed on Publisher Lookup (or on the US equivalent) we would go to the publisher's web site and look for a contact in the permissions or rights dept. We have a pro forma email which we send with the request details.

Generally publishers want to know the student's name, the name of their course, the end date of the course/their year of study, and the book details including ISBN/edition.

Issues with licence agreements:
Each publisher seems to have slightly different licence agreements. Some send these by email to be completed and sent back before the book will be supplied. Some are part of the online request form that we complete in the first place.

We (Library Special Support Services staff) sign the agreements. There has been only one occasion so far where this has been a problem - a US publisher refused to process the request because it came from the library and insisted it should come from the disability service. Other US publishers with online request forms appear to be asking for the 'School disability officer' to sign the agreement but have been happy to accept us as representing our disability service.

Some have said that we cannot supply the pdf direct to the student and must convert this to an alternative format first. However if the student requires the pdf I have gone back to the publisher to ask for permission to do this and have been given it - so no problem in the end. However permission was given with the proviso that the student had to destroy the pdf once their course had finished! We passed this on to the student concerned.

Students are informed that the pdf is for their personal use only and that they must not make it available to anyone else.

Where the publisher has required proof of purchase from the student there have been some problems - major delays while the student tries to track down a receipt for a book that they had bought some time before. However in most cases the publishers have been happy with an assurance from us that the student does own the book and have not asked to see actual receipts.

Sage are the publisher with the best track record - they respond to every request within days; their licence agreement is a model of commonsense and practicality. Let's hope it is adopted as standard before long!

We can keep a copy of the pdf on file for future use with other students studying the same material, but must apply for permission to supply it in each case. We will be keeping these back up copies on an external hard drive (currently on order). At the moment they are on a designated pc.

I would say that for the most part it is relatively straightforward to provide this service - responses from publishers in our limited experience so far have largely been fairly speedy - from 1 day to a couple of weeks. There are more likely to be delays with non-academic publishers and those who have not dealt with this kind of request before.

If you would like to see any of our information leaflets (currently under review for updating) I can send them.

Hope all this is of some help! 
Alison


Alison Clibbens
Library Special Support Services
Room 117, Level 1
The Charles Seale Hayne Library
University of Plymouth
Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA

01752 5(87215)
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________________________________________
From: A general Library and Information Science list for news and discussion. [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ben Watson [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 18 May 2011 13:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Obtaining alternative formats

Hello,

I am currently working on a draft policy document to inform a process for obtaining materials in alternative formats for students with disabilities. As such, I would like to see what other institutions are doing to in relation to making direct requests to publishers for electronic books. I would be particularly interested to see any other policy documents or to hear colleagues' experiences of the successes and pitfalls they have encountered.

I also have a number of specific questions it would be very helpful to have answers to:

What department is responsible for these requests within your organisation?
What is the procedure for approaching publishers to make these requests?
How is the communication between the learner, disability service, academic schools and library and information services managed?
How have you dealt with licensing issues? Who signs?
How are the end users made aware of their responsibilities under any institutional/library licences?
How do you store these materials?

I really appreciate your help.

Best regards,
Ben Watson

Academic Liaison Librarian and Information Services Disability Coordinator
University of Kent