From: David Macaulay <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:08:46 +0000

(With apologies for cross-posting)

My institution is looking into licensing certain electronic resources
(RS Means Complete Online Library) directly from the publisher.
Unfortunately, they refuse to provide an  institutional license –
rather they point to an online “User Agreement”
(https://subscription.rsmeansonline.com/Content/RSMeansOnlineUserAgreement.pdf)
designed for individual users, containing statements such as ”You
agree not to share your login and password for this Web site with any
other individual”,  which effectively forbids us from providing access
to our authorized users (access is password-based). Like many
publisher licenses I have been seeing recently, it also contains
rather aggressive indemnification clauses to which we cannot agree.

I am interested to know whether any other institution has been able to
negotiate with RS Means to develop an adequate institutional agreement
– or indeed, how they proceed with any vendor that relies solely on
restrictive user agreements designed for individual users. The RS
Means rep maintains that other institutions do accept their online
user agreement, but I am not convinced.

Thanks for responding on- or off-list if you have any relevant
experience you want to share.

David Macaulay
Electronic Resources Librarian
Librarian for Geography, Planning & Environment
Concordia University Libraries
Montreal QC H3G 1M8
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