From: "Sowards, Steve" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2012 14:00:43 +0000

Thanks for putting this defect front and center. I have had to say
'no' to multiple otherwise interesting e-book offers in the last two
years, over this same issue: publisher insistence that libraries waive
our legal right to ILL. This is especially galling when it comes to
university presses: one would have hoped that we would be on the same
side, namely, in favor of disseminating information. Money talks, when
it comes to publishers: if libraries refuse these offers (and state
plainly why they are doing so), publishers will hear the message.

Steven Sowards
Associate Director for Collections
Michigan State University Libraries
366 W. Circle Drive
East Lansing MI 48824


-----Original Message-----
From: "Hulbert, Linda A." <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 15:33:46 +0000

Books at JSTOR is coming on line and I hate to rain on its parade.

It's a terrific ebook product, I'm sure. The book content will be
discoverable in the database that faculty use and to which they direct
their students. If the book is in there and the user finds a citation
to it from a JSTOR book or journal, the user can get to the book.
They have listened to libraries for acquisition methods offering the
books to be purchased book by book, narrowly described subject,
broadly described subject, the whole collection or DDA. They are using
the same tiers they've developed for journals for pricing.  JSTOR is
that trusted source of archival materials and they have arranged for
archival preservation.  Libraries have given them their content for
digitizing. And libraries send 10s of thousands of dollars to them
every year.

Books at JSTOR will include the fine quality publications of our
university presses and institutes.

However, if I buy that same book through my book vendor (should it
continue to be offered that way), I've negotiated the right to
interlibrary loan - keeping my institution's fair use.  I know that
ILL is inefficient and potentially more expensive for ebooks than
other methods of accessing them (I don't need a response from
colleagues telling me I'm stupid for trying to maintain fair use for
ebooks). I believe in time the marketplace may direct me to the
short-term loan as a more efficient and less expensive model - but I
want that choice and that choice is gone in Books at JSTOR.  There is
NO ILL. Period. Not a paragraph, not a chapter, not 10% of the book.
When I sign the license to buy an ebook from Books at JSTOR, I cede Fair Use.

The folks at JSTOR don't mention that in their literature and it's the
last thing on the webinar.  We abandon the Fair Use doctrine at our
own peril. We decide that our user needs are paramount and we're not
going to worry about that so that we can get them this terrific
content today, at our future peril. As we move more and more to the
e-choice for books, we make more and more less available to our
borrowing partners and they to us.

I encourage my colleagues to put pressure on JSTOR to go back to the
drawing board and renegotiate ILL rights for purchasers. I encourage
librarians to go back to their University presses and encourage them
to allow ILL and favorable rights for our publishing scholars.

Linda

Linda Hulbert, Associate Director
Collection Management and Services
O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library #5004
University of Saint Thomas
St. Paul, MN 55105
email: [log in to unmask]