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]