From: "Siler, Elizabeth" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 19 May 2015 17:33:18 +0000

CHARLOTTE – May 19, 2015 - Through a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, the UNC Charlotte J. Murrey Atkins Library will
investigate how best to license and acquire electronic resources for
academic libraries. The $271,000 award is a two-year research and
planning grant to produce recommendations for the licensing and
acquisition of electronic resources, particularly eBooks.

“Academic institutions are moving rapidly from print to electronic
books,” said Joan Lorden, provost and vice chancellor for academic
affairs at UNC Charlotte. “UNC Charlotte, with the generous support of
the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will explore the impact this shift
has on the long-term survival, use, and licensing of eBooks.”

The UNC Charlotte-based project team will convene a working group to
discuss, define and investigate the impact on academic institutions of
three principles for eBook licenses:

1. Unlimited simultaneous users

2. No Digital Rights Management (DRM) either contractual or technological

3. Irrevocable perpetual access and archival rights

The working group will be comprised of participants who represent
library consortia, publishers, content aggregators, and academic
libraries, and will join the UNC Charlotte team to examine these
principles throughout the two-year term of the grant.

Three research teams will be formed to share their perspectives on the
three principles and work together to identify essential
characteristics and implications for their institutions. The groups
will explore and discuss licensing terms, user experience and the
impact of DRM, and classroom and instruction use.  In addition, a
consultant to the project team will prepare an environmental scan of
the eBook market and support its work.

In spring 2017, the grant will conclude with a free conference in
Charlotte to share the findings of the working group and research
teams, and invite further discussion. Final versions of white papers
or similar products and the environmental scan will also be released
at this time.

About the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation:
Founded in 1969, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation endeavors to
strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of
the humanities and the arts to human flourishing and to the well-being
of diverse and democratic societies by supporting exemplary
institutions of higher education and culture as they renew and provide
access to an invaluable heritage of ambitious, path-breaking work.

About Atkins Library:
The J. Murrey Atkins Library at UNC Charlotte is a member of the
Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL). Atkins
provides access to over 2 million physical and virtual volumes, with
rapidly expanding electronic collections of over 400 databases and
more than 700,000 eBooks.

About UNC Charlotte
UNC Charlotte is North Carolina’s urban research university. With fall
2014 enrollment of 27,300 students, the University leverages its
location in the state’s largest city to offer internationally
competitive programs of research and creative activity, exemplary
undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs, and a focused set
of community engagement initiatives.

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J. Murrey Atkins Library contact:  Elizabeth Siler | 704-687-1372 |
[log in to unmask]

UNC Charlotte media relations contact:  Buffie Stephens | 704-687-5830
| 980-355-3110 | [log in to unmask]