From: "Hamaker, Charles" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 13:05:45 -0500

Charlotte Initiative: Principles for Permanent Acquisition of eBooks
for Academic Libraries

We’re glad to see the thoughtful email chain Jim O’Donnell introduced
about some of the issues that limit the effectiveness of scholarly
ebooks for academic library users.  While we have more questions than
answers at this stage, I’d like to describe a Mellon funded research
grant “Charlotte Initiative: Principles for Permanent Acquisition of
eBooks for Academic Libraries” which dovetails with some of these
concerns.

At UNC Charlotte, we determined from faculty and student feedback that
we would only purchase ebooks that met these three key criteria:

·  Provision of irrevocable perpetual access and archival rights.

·  Allowance for unlimited simultaneous users.

·  Freedom from any Digital Rights Management (DRM), including (but
not limited to) use of proprietary formats, restricted access to
content, or time-limited access terms.

We presented a preconference at Charleston in November 2014 and have
now secured a Mellon grant to explore these issues.  As you are well
aware, many providers will not or cannot sell ebooks to libraries
under these conditions, but there are growing numbers of publishers
who will and do.  We want to understand what purchasers need to do to
take advantage of the hundreds of thousands of ebooks available under
these conditions and to identify practices that will make this a
sustainable enterprise for publishers.

We have recruited a group of 20 “like minded“ professionals to use the
terms of the Mellon invitation: university press publishers, consortia
representatives, and librarians from a wide range of academic
libraries.  The working group met in September 2015 and will convene
again in Charlotte in September 2016, and is meeting virtually
throughout the year to discuss these issues.  Near the conclusion of
the project, we’ll host an Open Conference to share our research
findings in March/April 2017.

There are several potential options for libraries that want to control
and make long-term provisions for the ebooks they purchase.   We
initially planned for three research teams with membership from among
our participants, their nominees and other invited representatives.

The Licensing Principles Team will first explore the fundamental
issues in ebook licensing keeping libraries from achieving a
collection that meets the core principles of the grant and then
develop possible solutions.  It is led by Steve Cohn, Duke University
Press, and Theresa Liedtka, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga.

Liz Siler, UNC Charlotte, leads the Course Use Research Team. It will
focus on the opportunities libraries have to work with publishers on
providing ebooks for course use including different compensation
models and creating open educational resources.  The group includes
participants from both university presses and libraries.

Led by Alison Bradley, UNC Charlotte, the User Experience Research
Team will address the ways that libraries assess user satisfaction
with using ebooks that have restrictive conditions like proprietary
formats, web-only readers, or limited simultaneous users. The team
leader and research assistant completed a literature review to
evaluate the existing research published on user satisfaction with
academic library ebooks, and plans to conduct further research to
develop consistent guidelines for libraries to assess patron
satisfaction with the various formats and platforms of eBooks in their
collections.

We have enormous respect for Portico and LOCKSS/CLOCKSS and the
efforts of various commercial systems for ebook access.  But we
believe there is room for more variety and direct library involvement
in solutions to these issues that align with long term library
perspectives while meeting the needs of our partners in the publishing
information chain.  During the September face-to-face meeting in 2015
we realized that we needed an investigation of platform and
preservation issues including long term archiving and preservation to
meet the interests and expressed concerns of the assembled
participants.  The Platforms and Preservation Team is led by Kate
Davis, OCUL/Scholars Portal, and Will Wakeling, Northeastern
University.

Our consultant is undertaking a comprehensive environmental scan of
the academic library ebook market, focusing on business models,
pricing, and publisher and vendor receptivity to the three principles.
This iterative effort will include original research conducted using
surveys and interviews.

Our topics are broader in some ways than your concerns, and narrower
at the same time. Your illustrations and the responses they have
generated have reinforced our belief that the time is right to
investigate these concerns and influence the environment and the
marketplace.

We hope that our investigations will lead to further developments in
progress towards reliable means of permanent acquisition, creative use
and archiving of ebooks.

For more information on the Charlotte Initiative please see our
website.  It is rudimentary at this point but we will post
announcements as new content is added.  We have planned an iterative
research process and will welcome feedback as we have more information
to share.  Please feel free to contact us for more information.

http://guides.library.uncc.edu/c.php?g=415902&p=2834242

Sincerely,

Chuck Hamaker, Principal Investigator, UNC Charlotte, [log in to unmask]

October Ivins, Charlotte Initiative Consultant, [log in to unmask]

Alison Bradley, Head of Research and Instructional Services UNC
Charlotte, [log in to unmask]

Liz Siler, Collection Development Librarian UNC Charlotte, [log in to unmask]