Legal Research

Library eBook Acquisitions Growing

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting (May 30, 2008) the following:

Research Libraries Embrace E-Books

"Sixty-nine percent of university research libraries plan to increase spending on e-books over the next two years, according to a recent study published by Primary Research Group Inc. This finding and others were based on a survey of 45 research libraries in countries around the world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, and Japan."

Also, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL is the Canadian academic research libraries, the Library of Parliament, Library and Archives Canada, and CISTI (Canadian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information) Task Group on eBooks recently published a study entitled E-Books in Research Libraries: Issues of Access and Use.

The report includes:
? A literature review; a useful bibliography
? A review of e-book licenses and comparisons with print;
? An examination of differences between access and use of print books and e-books and impact on scholarship;
? An outline of the issues of access and use of e- books in Research Libraries including recommendations for the CARL Copyright Committee.

The report concludes:

"There is a danger that research libraries are adding e-books to their collections using agreements that significantly reduce users? rights. There is some urgency to improve this situation before it becomes a de facto standard. The Task Group on E-Books makes two recommendations to the CARL Copyright Committee: to create or endorse a statement of principles for licensing e-books, and to create a model license for Canadian research libraries."

The principles must include, at a minimum:
1. a guarantee of user rights as permitted under Canadian copyright law;
2. no digital rights management, or limited DRM with circumvention permitted to exercise non-infringing user rights under the Act;
3. the governing law must be Canadian;
4. the ability to audit for price comparison (limited confidentiality/nondisclosure clause);
5. detailed user information and analysis to gauge impact on scholarship;
6. removal of content clause; and
7. permanent copy provisions.

Read the full report here.

Canadian Association of Research Libraries
Copyright Committee & Task Group on E-Books

E-Books in Research Libraries: Issues of Access and Use
(17 page PDF)

Stephen

Full post as published by Stephen's Lighthouse on June 05, 2008 (boomark / email).