From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 21:03:51 -0600

I am curious as to the meaning of this paragraph:

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.

If there is unlimited simultaneous use, then what additional problem
is there to solve for course use of ebooks? And how do licensed
ebooks relate to "open educational resources." It seems to me they are
two separate models altogether.

Sandy Thatcher



> From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 18:08:21 -0700
>
> Chuck, thank you for posting this.  I'm delighted to see this
> initiative, particularly when I see who's involved.  Please mark
> myself and ASU as interested parties.  At the very least, I will look
> forward to the conference a year from now.  The issues you are
> focusing on are exactly the ones where we need movement.
>
> I'll underscore just one of your points:  when the publisher deposits
> an ebook with Portico or CLOCKSS, an assurance of perpetuity is
> achieved.  But if my library has "bought" the book not from the
> publisher but from a third-party aggregator/vendor, who has mashed it
> up into a proprietary format, the steps by which access will be
> secured from the archived version after the aggregator goes belly-up
> are far from clear.  I would even say that if we are required to do
> *anything* in such a circumstance to secure continued access, we're
> being ill-served.  Our stacks are full of books from publishers who
> have gone out of business, but we continue to use them uninterruptedly
> as before.  That should be a standard.
>
> I've been having a conversation since last week with a serious
> academic publisher about the issues I raised and we're making good
> progress coming to a shared understanding of the issues.  I hope to
> share a resulting message that will go into the ways library/publisher
> interests both align and misalign sometime in the next week or so.
>
> With thanks and congratulations,
> Jim O'Donnell
> ASU
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 5:40 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>  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]