Direct link to the slides on SlideShare

Some of the general principles:

• The Public Domain is the rule, copyright protection is the exception.
• Copyright protection should last only as long as necessary to achieve a reasonable compromise between protecting and rewarding the author for his intellectual labour and safeguarding the public interest in the dissemination of culture and knowledge.
• What is in the Public Domain must remain in the Public Domain.
• The lawful user of a digital copy of a Public Domain work should be free to (re-)use, copy and modify such work.
• Contracts or technical protection measures that restrict access to and re-use of Public Domain works must not be enforced.

I recommend that you review the manifesto, and if you agree with it, show your support by signing it.

found via Open Source Initiative

A prime focus of the analysis is the Orphan Works issue, books that fall under copyright guidelines but have no clear indication of who the actual copyright holder is.  A chart detailing the number of orphan works in existence is an excellent example of  providing just the right amount of information in a very readable way (note the use of Google’s colors):

Financial Times Graphic on Orphan Works

There is also an interesting accompanying article on the European reaction to the issue.

thanks to Jim Campbell for posting about this on Web4Lib!

• New Metaphysics
• Critical Climate Change
• Global Conversations
• Unidentified Theoretical Objects

and my favorite…

• Liquid Books

According to the site, Liquid Books will be

“a series of experimental digital books published under the conditions of both open editing and free content. As such, you are free to annotate, tag, edit, add to, remix, reformat, reversion, reinvent and reuse any of the books in the series – and what’s more you are encouraged to do so. The most interesting results of such open editing and writing… will be ‘frozen’ and published by OHP”

This looks to be a great mix of scholarly publishing combined with open access, with some remixing thrown into the vat!  Also check out the press release (pdf).

thanks to Karen Schneiderman for the link

• The act of assigning a copyright to something already in the public domain is the issue; taking a Project Gutenberg text, formatting it, and publishing it is of great benefit to people, as long as one doesn’t claim protection that doesn’t actually exist for the material.
• The Creative Commons Public Domain Tools is not a license, nor is it  an attempt “to become the arbiter of  public domain licensing”, but a way to allow people to have an easy and effective way to display that a work belongs to the Public Domain.

found via LISNews

This is a process that many libraries will be going through on a large scale within the next few years, as budget cuts and cost increases force us to rethink what serials we offer, and how we offer them.

This is one of those areas in which there are no easy solutions; every cut is likely to remove some resources from users, and not everything will remain available or affordable by alternate means.  Serials management has been the financial seven-headed-hydra, with every solution either creating or being replaced by a new problem.

This conclusion to the records policy proposal is the best that could be imagined.  OCLC has listened to criticism from the greater library community, considered both the policy and it’s criticism through the efforts of the Review Board, and has responded in a way that allows everyone to move forward with a greater understanding of how best to go about updating the policy.

I suggested early on that OCLC was a tiger, instinctively defending its territory.  This still feels like a proper metaphor:  the movement towards creating a policy without proper input from the library community, and the subsequent review and withdrawing of the policy, seems more like an organization that didn’t realize the true implications of what it was putting in place, as opposed to one that was attempting a power grab to create a monopoly.

This was, and remains, a critical issue for libraries.  The ability to use the metadata representing our collections (as well as connecting them to collections and resources beyond what we own) is critical to our future ability to offer services in ways that will serve our patrons best.

I certainly hope that OCLC sets up a policy creation board similar to the review board – one that seeks a wide a range of ideas, opinion and input.  This will ensure a policy that takes a broader and more complete view of the use of cataloging records, but will also strengthen OCLC, because a membership organization is stronger when the constituent members are consistently heard and respected.  This has happened with the Review Board, and if OCLC continues to encourage it, everyone will come out ahead.

To OCLC:  You have responded well, and in the process have created an opportunity to solidify your position as a membership organization.  Keep up the good work and you will benefit, along with your members.

To the Review Board:  The report is well-written, and does an excellent job of stating what was wrong with the policy (and the process of creating the policy), as well as providing a constructive means to create a new policy that will properly reflect the needs and desires of the membership as a whole.

To detractors of the policy:  Those who offered strong, but constructive, criticism deserve recognition.  This was an emotional debate, and keeping focused on the issues at hand has ultimately won the day.  The best, and most complete, resource of commentary and information is the Code4Lib OCLC Policy Change page.

This has been an education for all involved:  the power of sustained commentary, of constructive criticism, of listening as well as talking, and of reviewing and changing positions when necessary.  Everyone should keep it up.

resources:  ResourceShelf & Disruptive Library Technology Jester

I am happy to report that Wiley got back to me directly the day after the original post. The other happy news is that St. Thomas will be treated as a single site permitting us to sign the BAL license (Basic Access License) and not be required to use the EAL (Enhanced Access License).

We have looked at the language of both licenses closely to see what best serves the University of St. Thomas. We are grateful for the opportunity to choose rather than be locked into a kind of license because of a multi-site designation. I wish that everyone had the choice.

It appears to us that the BAL will meet all of our needs. We’ve read the license, the EBSCO license detail and looked at the Wiley FAQ. The only difference we can tell is that in the BAL, ILL is not explicit, but it is inferred and electronic course-packs are not explicit but they are also inferred. More than silent on the matter, the language permits the activities without so naming them.

We worried about two more areas: access in perpetuity for the content purchased (to obviate the need for purchasing paper, too) and usage data. The license, the FAQ and EBSCO’s review all indicate that we have access in perpetuity to subscribed data either by their supplying archival copy or continued access online. I would imagine, although it is not stated, that as long as we have any online Wiley content we will have access to purchased content online. While we subscribe we have access back to 1997, if available. I would not expect them to continue access to unpurchased content after cancellation.

Usage data: This is a change. At one point the EAL was required for usage data but that is no longer true. Both the FAQ and the license indicate that BAL license users will have usage data.

The benefits they list at their FAQ for all subscribers: Free access to Counter-compliant usage data; unlimited concurrent users, free course-pack and walk-in user access; content back to 1997 where available and perpetual access to content back to 1997.

We have a few things to negotiate with Wiley – our institution prefers licenses to be silent on governing law if we can’t have Minnesota and we would like to have a co-signed license. But in all the important ways, we are thrilled with the BAL.

So, these are our experiences. This is all good for UST.

I thought I would share some of the comments I got back from colleagues from various lists. Because some were directed just to me, I am going to have them all be anonymous.

Overall, what I see is that Wiley has replaced Elsevier as the least valued ‘partner’ in the scholarly communication chain. Because we have a choice, we are comfortable doing business with Wiley.

Her e-mail, with comments from her colleagues, can be found at the SERIALST Archive.

The entire post can be found on the SERIALST Archive; I am including a large part of it in this post:

Another company is looking at the Elsevier model and using it. Unfortunately, unlike Elsevier where a library might get more content than they could pay for and unlike Elsevier which does not require that a library participate, Wiley is requiring all multi-site libraries to have a no-cancellation, minimum life time spend. Add insult to injury, we are not a multi-site library by any other vendor’s definition! But Wiley has designated us so. Without recourse.

So, I am sending this letter to many people at Wiley and in the library community. Please, help resist these kinds of publisher practices.

*****
I am writing to you today in your capacity as someone concerned with [higher education, customer service] at John Wiley and Sons.

Wiley provides an EAL license which has three major features: two year agreement, a guaranteed minimum spend (no cancellations without adding titles) (ala Elsevier) and, for that ‘lock-in,’ libraries will have a cap on the annual inflationary increases. Wiley requires multi-site libraries – which they have declared we are – enter into an EAL license for electronic journal content.

We have two problems with this rigid requirement:

1. Wiley is now treating my university as a multi-campus university. Let me assure you that all other vendors treat us a single site because, while we have libraries in Minneapolis and St. Paul, we have a single IP address, single president, and a single Accounts Payable for all campuses (including Rome which has 4 seminarians studying abroad!).

2. The EAL license is required for all online journal content we purchase from Wiley/Blackwell in 2010. Currently, our online-only spend is about $3,000, our print +online is over $33,000, and our total spend is about $66,000 for journal content with Wiley. What does that mean for the University of St. Thomas? We would not be able to cancel – i.e. lower our ‘current’ spend. That means that as tuition dollars dry up, as the university’s contribution to the libraries shrink, we cannot cancel titles in the Wiley contract. It’s ironic that while we would be locked into a multi-year contract during these incredibly unpredictable and difficult financial times, Wiley could change their title list at will – buying or selling titles as the market dictates.

We have spoken with your representative, Diane Conroy, and there are no alternatives IF we want online journal content from Wiley. She is adamant.

Hence, our only option is to cancel all of our online content. I assume that is not Wiley’s goal but the only one we see available to us since we cannot agree to a multi-year, dollar spend commitment. We will cancel what we can – I can see about $30,000 in cancellations (27 titles) without too much pain. We will purchase print-only in the cases where we have had print +online and we will cancel our online-only and move back to print-only. As we all know, even good content that is print-only will become marginalized by our users and as it does, we’ll easily be able to justify canceling the remaining print titles. And, of course, we will not be purchasing new journal content from Wiley.

When September comes, if we have no agreement with Wiley for 2010 permitting cancellation and permitting single year subscriptions, we will have to take these draconian steps.

I will be sharing this letter with the Wiley board of directors, others in Wiley management, the serials community, the licensing community and other colleagues in the library community.

Thank you for your attention.

We in the library community need to be prepared to bend, but not to break.  If a vendor isn’t meeting us halfway, then we need to consider walking away.  There is always more than one way to achieve our mission, and we have to have that in mind and act accordingly. I hope Wiley takes notice of this library’s action, and looks to see how it can best serve both their customers, as well as their company’s, needs.

“The proposed policy appears to freeze OCLC’s role in the library community based on historical and current relationships. We share the concern, voiced by many, that the policy hinders rather than encourages innovation, and we urge the Review Board to carefully examine this issue. It is unclear that the policy has been constructed with a focus on an evolving role of OCLC in enhancing the missions of an international library community with diverse and complex interests.”

This may not seem like a strongly worded statement, but take a look at the list of consortia behind the statement (located at the bottom of the statement, linked above).  Is your library, or geographic region, represented by one or more of these?  Based on the consortia I recognize, this statement has thousands of libraries behind it.

“Speak softly and carry a big stick, you shall go far”, Theodore Roosevelt’s iconic statement, applies very well to this statement.

My own addition to the current state of events is that the broad-based library community needs to be strongly involved with the record use policy, especially now that OCLC has solidly entered the ILS arena with their new WorldCat functionality.  If they are able to use access and use of the records as a way to encourage/coerce/retain customers, they likely someday will.  It makes good business sense, even if it is lousy public relations.

Further reading:

blog.ecorrado.us

Thingology

Bibliographic Wilderness

Proverbial Lone Wolf Librarian