Legal Research

Law Librarians? Vendor Relations Wiki

By Michael Lines

Via The Law Librarian Blog, Sarah Glassmeyer has started LISVendor.info, a wiki to collect and share information on the relations, financial and otherwise, between law librarians and legal publishers.

In light of recent developments, this may be a particularly timely resource. Since those events, Harper Collins has launched an attack on libraries in general with its 26-loan limit, and the response has been swift, including a boycott and a draft eBook Users’ Bill of Rights.

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries produced a report on eBooks in academic libraries in 2008 that identified a range of issue that should be considered by libraries when signing up for eBooks. The main issue, of course, is that of ownership. Licensing agreements leave libraries little to fall back upon on where publishers default or decide to change the terms.

But then, information on licensing agreements can be hard to come by, due to confidentiality clauses. It is time for librarians to quit knuckling under to publishers and signing away the rights of their readers for the sake of convenience.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on March 11, 2011 (boomark / email).