From: Danny Kingsley <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 01:45:12 +0000

Perhaps I should elucidate what I mean by a slippery slope.

A few years ago when I was working for the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation as a journalist for the Science Online website we
inadvertently broke embargo on a story from Nature (media outlets
receive the journal under embargo a couple of days early to allow time
to interview people and go live with stories at the time of
publication of the journal).

Nature immediately demanded the article be removed from the site (fair
enough) and also said they would black the entire ABC – all states,
all media platforms - for three months. It was only through intense
negotiation and some serious undertakings on Science Online's behalf
that we were able to avert the blackout on embargoed versions.

When we tie the payment for licensing to published research to the
conditions around what can be deposited into our own institution's
repository then we are opening up the library to a potentially
difficult situation. Managing the copyright of articles deposited into
a repository is complex and time consuming*, as I know from many
year's direct experience. If your institution inadvertently made a
publication available in contravention to the CTA or other
arrangement, what is the consequence to the license to the corpus of
research from that publisher?

I can't imagine the academic community would look kindly upon a
situation where they were not able to access research in the library
because of an administrative error. It is worth checking what the
cross ramifications are between the two aspects of the license
agreement in terms of how they impact on each other.

Danny

*It does not help that the rules are also constantly changing – see
'Walking in quicksand – keeping up with copyright agreements' -
http://aoasg.org.au/2013/05/23/walking-in-quicksand-keeping-up-with-copyright-agreements/

Dr Danny Kingsley
Executive Officer
Australian Open Access Support Group
e: [log in to unmask]
w: wwww.aoasg.org.au

*******

From: ANTHONY WATKINSON <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 09:16:43 +0000

I have been a librarian and more recently a publisher and am now an
academic researcher. I have never negotiated the sort of agreement
being discussed. However I can say that publishers both for their own
part and on behalf of the academics they serve do very much want to
know the total usage of articles. In particular there is a huge demand
from editors and editorial boards of journals. Maybe some helpful
suggestions about how compressive downloads stats can be achieved
might be offered instead of comments about slippery slopes and
suchlike

Anthony

________________________________

From: Danny Kingsley <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 00:38:38 +0000

Hi Anne,

I preface my comment with the caveat that I am not a librarian, nor
have I ever been involved in the negotiation of licenses. But I have
been involved in open access for a fair time.

This type of conflation of what a library pays for in terms of
licensing to published content with what locally generated outputs a
university can (or not) place into the institutional repository, and
subsequent information about those deposits, is the beginning of a
very slippery slope. You are correct to be concerned about this
clause.

If this publisher has had this clause in all of those licenses to date
then perhaps it might be worth asking what compliance levels they have
enjoyed from the many amenable libraries and consortia? It might be
worth also asking for the names of a couple of the more compliant
libraries and/or consortia to allow you to consult with them on how
they have managed to overcome the issues that you perceive to exist
with compliance. I'm sure in this (apparent) new age of sharing and
openness your publisher would be more than happy to assist with that
information.

Danny

Dr Danny Kingsley
------------------------------------------
Executive Officer
Australian Open Access Support Group (AOASG)
Menzies Library, Building 2
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200 Australia
E: [log in to unmask]
W: http://aoasg.org.au
T: @openaccess_oz


-----Original Message-----

From: Anne McKee <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 14:48:53 -0700

Happy week of Thanksgiving!

I know this is a short week for many, but I've been negotiating with a
major publisher for over 2 months with their license.  We had a
conference call today about the remaining issues-one being the usage
statistics this publisher wants our members to send them for articles
that individual authors have added to their institution's IR.

"The Licensee will make reasonable efforts to provide XXXX annually
with statistics about the number of articles deposited each year by
Authorized Users (or the Library's library staff on their behalf)
under this provision, together with usage data about the number of
accesses to and downloads of such articles, consistent with applicable
privacy and confidentiality laws. "

This license also is insisting on a 12 month embargo and has COUNTER
compliance required

I have strenuously objected to this over and over saying this would be
an onerous (and almost impossible) compulsory mandate for our members.
I've sent this out to our membership this am and I've already
received 7 responses saying that this would prove almost impossible to
do-particularly if they want the article level.

Said publisher has expressed surprise stating that ALL their licenses
have had this language for the past year and neither consortia nor
libraries have objected to this.

Anne E. McKee, M.L.S.
Program Officer for Resource Sharing
Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA)
[log in to unmask]
www.GWLA.org