Subject: Standard licenses for e-journals
From: Barbara Schleihagen (Eblida@nblc.nl)
Date: ke 18 elo 1999 - 15:07:28 EEST
Dear subscribers,
Press release below forwarded for your information. The standard licenses
are now available at: http://www.licensingmodels.com/
Best wishes,
Barbara Schleihagen
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From: Jennifer Buizer <jbuizer@swets.nl>
Subject: Press Release
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1999 10:07:08 +0200
Return-Receipt-To: Jennifer Buizer <jbuizer@swets.nl>
Content-Length: 3894
+++ Press Release +++
____________________________
Lisse, August 1999
Swets works with other major subscription agents to create standard licenses
for e-journals
The leading subscription agents, including Swets Subscription Service, have
cooperated to create a suite of generic standard licenses for electronic
journals. Swets, along with Blackwell's, Dawson, EBSCO and Harrasowitz
worked with John Cox of John Cox Associates who developed the licenses under
their sponsorship. The licenses are intended to help publishers,
subscription agents and libraries to create agreements that express what
they have jointly negotiated. They do not prescribe the outcome of
negotiations, but are designed to account for the varying needs of different
types of customers, and the requirements and policies of different
publishers.
Traditionally the agents have existed to rationalise and ease the process of
ordering journals. They provide subscription management and information
services to libraries, and an effective distribution channel for publishers
world-wide. The provision of services for e-journals, and the management of
licenses for electronic information, is a natural extension of this
long-established activity.
There are four model licenses: for single academic institutions, for
academic consortia, for public libraries, and for corporate, government and
other research libraries. They are international in application and are the
result of consultation with librarians, publishers as well as the
subscription agents. The licenses are voluntary-based and open to anyone
wishing to adopt them, as they are in the public domain. They will shortly
be made available on the website: www.licensingmodels.com.
Albert Prior, Publisher Relations Manager for Electronic Services at Swets
said: "There is still a wide variation of practices in the licensing of
e-journals. The Generic licenses will go a long way to help in simplifying
and speeding up this area of e-journal acquisitions and their adoption by
publishers and libraries is to be strongly encouraged". He continued: " We
are delighted to have worked with our fellow subscription agents, along with
the publishers and librarians involved, in developing the licenses. The
coordination and guidance of John Cox, whose background is of both publisher
and subscription agent, brings a unique perspective to the development of
the licenses in this initiative".
The starting point for the standard has been the many licenses and
statements of policy already in the public arena. The UK's PA/JISC model
license, developed by publishers and librarians from the Publishers
Association and the Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher
Education Funding Councils, was a vital source of format, concepts and model
provisions. The US Principles for Licensing Electronic Resources from the
American Library Association et al, and the Statements of Current
Perspectives from the International Coalition of Library Consortia were both
important sources of ideas, as were the LIBLICENSE web site and many
publishers' individual licenses.
During 1998 and 1999 Swets has been very active in the area of licences for
e-journals, in particular through its involvement in NESLI, the National
Electronic Site Licence Initiative, in which Swets is a joint partner with
Manchester Computing in the role of NESLI Managing Agent. Swets has
negotiated with a number of publishers, on behalf of NESLI, using the model
licence used for NESLI which was based on the PA/JISC license. This
experience has provided a very valuable contribution to the development of
the agents' standard licences.
____________________
Note to Editors
If you have any questions regarding this press release then please contact
Bart de Gans, Communication Manager of Swets & Zeitlinger BV.
Tel: +31 252 435 388
Fax: +31 252 415 888
Email:bdegans@swets.nl
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