This week’s list of threads starts with a pointer a statement by the International Coalition of Library Consortia on the growing pressure between publishers and libraries over the appropriate rights and permissions for scholarly material. In that same vein, Joe Lucia writes about his vision for libraries and the cultural commons to the Digital Public Library of America mailing list. On the more geeker side is a third link to an article with the experience of content producers creating HTML5-enabled web apps. And finally, on the far geeky side, is a view of what happens when a whole lot of new wireless devices — smartphones, tablets, and the like — show up on a wifi network.

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ICOLC Response to the International Association of Scientific Technical and Medical (STM) Statement

A recent statement by the International Association of Scientific Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) advocates a set of new guidelines for document delivery (http://www.stm-assoc.org/industry-news/stm-statement-on-document-delivery/). While intellectual property laws vary from country to country, STM’s approach would radically alter well-established library practices that advance knowledge, support scholarship, and are compliant with current copyright laws. The STM recommendations are in conflict with widely held principles that provide a copyright exception for interlibrary loan (ILL) activities. The regime anticipated by the STM statement would place unfair restrictions on researchers’ access to information. In particular, ICOLC contends that:

1. interlibrary loan, under existing principles and laws, is consistent with the three-step test of Berne;
2. cross-border deliveries are adequately and appropriately governed by current copyright law;
3. digital document delivery directly to an end-user is best coordinated through the end-user’s library or community of learners;
4. libraries are able to deliver on-site articles to library walk-up patrons in any format, including both digital and print;
5. current copyright law appropriately places the burden on the library user to affirm that the documents they receive are for private, non-commercial use.

The ICOLC strongly supports IFLA’s Draft Library Treaty, Article 7, which states “It shall be permissible for a library or archive to supply a copy of any work. . . lawfully acquired or accessed by the library or archive, to another library or archive for subsequent supply to any of its users, by any means . . . provided that such use is compatible with fair practice as determined in national law” (http://www.ifla.org/files/clm/publications/tlib.pdf). See also ARL’s statement clarifying legal protections afforded to libraries for national and international ILL use (http://publications.arl.org/rli275/18), and related documents (http://publications.arl.org/rli275/4 and http://publications.arl.org/rli275).

- ICOLC Response to the International Association of Scientific Technical and Medical (STM) Statement, International Coalition of Library Consortia, issued June 22, 2011

On the heels of last week’s frightening copyright scenario comes this statement from the International Coalition of Library Consortia. It was short, so the main content of the statement is posted above. Follow the link in the citation to find contact information for the ICOLC statement. Library Journal also has an article on the statement with quotes from Tracy Thompson-Przylucki and Ann Okerson.

Libraries & the Cultural Commons

Reduced to its medium-independent core, the mission of libraries is to subsidize and sustain barrier-free access to intellectual and cultural resources for our constituents and communities. In that sense, libraries establish a bridge between the proprietary realm of commercially supplied intellectual property and the gift economies of intellectual and cultural expression. From my perspective, everything we do flows from that core function. The DPLA will be, in effect, a new global networked digital face of the library as cultural and intellectual commons.

- Libraries & the Cultural Commons, by Joe Lucia, DPLA mailing list, 22-Jun-2011

Joe Lucia, University Librarian at Villanova University, posted this broad and, frankly, energizing view of the role for libraries to the Digital Public Library of America mailing list. If you want a concise view of how libraries are about content and services and not the historical carrier and delivery mechanisms, then take a look at this message.

The FT and NPR: HTML5 as part of a multi-platform strategy

I had heard that the FT and Apple were struggling to come to an agreement on digital subscriptions, so it came as no surprise to me that the FT has launched an HTML5 web app. Some folks have added sneer quotes around app, but I’m not going to. The HTML5 version of the FT’s app looks, behaves and has even more functionality than their native iPad app.

- The FT and NPR: HTML5 as part of a multi-platform strategy, Strange Attractor blog, 7-Jun-2011

I think there is a strong future in common agreement of web markup standards over proprietary app development. I’ve made that point serveral times on DLTJ, so I remain attuned to stories that point in that direction. This article points to how the U.K.’s Financial Times built an iPad app using the built-in Safari browser and the HTML5 tools like advanced cascading stylesheets and offline storage for reading when you are off the net (just like the old Financial Times native app). And, of course, the techniques work on other tablet platforms with minimal modification. NPR is experimenting with the same technique using Google’s Chrome web browser.

Wi-Fi client surge forcing fresh wireless LAN thinking

IDC reports that twice as many smartphones and tablets, nearly all with Wi-Fi, will ship compared to laptops this year. The number of Wi-Fi certified handsets in 2010 was almost 10 times the number certified in 2007, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance. Tablets, e-readers and portable audio devices are helping to drive this growth.

The result is a very different wireless environment in terms of radio behaviors, Wi-Fi implementations, applications, usage and traffic compared to just a year or two ago. This raises a different set of issues from simply managing these mobile devices with tools from vendors…

- Wi-Fi client surge forcing fresh wireless LAN thinking, by John Cox, Network World

Long ago I used to have to manage network infrastructure. That was back in the days when, for a small organization, one person could be the unix system administrator, the network administrator, and help with desktop support. With the complexity and pervasiveness of devices, though, I don’t think one person can do all of that any more. It is articles like this one that talk about the difficulties managing wireless networks that are bursting at the seams with new devices that make me realize how far networking has come in the past two decades.

In roughly a week, the OCLC membership through the Members Council will hear of the preliminary findings from the Review Board of Shared Data Creation and Stewardship. The Review Board was tasked with formulating recommendations in response to the community’s objections to the proposed Record Use policy. The charter for the Review Board says that “delegates will discuss the report at the May Members Council meeting….” In anticipation of this event, I posed this question to reviewboard@oclc.org: is the review board planning on publicly posting a draft report prior to the meeting so the Members Council delegates can bring community feedback to the meeting?

Dr. Jennifer Younger, director of libraries at the University of Notre Dame and chair of the of the review board, replied and gave permission to post her response widely:

I will be reporting out to the MC next week as you state. I will not have a written draft of the Review Board report although I will have copies of my presentation on Monday for the delegates. I think there will be a period of about two weeks, give or take, when MC delegates could solicit input from their respective communities.

At the MC meeting, I will speak about the input we are getting, from whom, the nature of the comments and highlight some of the survey findings, and note that Review Board members themselves bring a wide range of expertise to the job at hand, from a variety of kinds of institutions and backgrounds as well, adding to the diversity of input.

I will identify the issues we see to date, the areas to be addressed in our recommendations and the directions in which we are going, listing these in some useful order. I will ask for input from MC on the issues, areas to be addressed in the recommendations and the directions in which we are going. I will speak to the timetable and steps between the MC meeting and delivery of the final report to Chair, BOT, President, MC and CEO, OCLC.

I followed up by noting that it seemed like a good deal of the information about the activities and directions of the Review Board are going to be transmitted orally to Members Council. As important as this issue is to the core of OCLC, I am concerned that the discussion within the community after Dr. Younger’s presentation on Monday could be derailed by inadvertent misunderstandings or errant quoting of the presentation content.

I asked: can you post a copy of your presentation slides, if any, and/or the text of your prepared remarks to the online feedback forum shortly after the Members Council meeting? I would offer that doing so would improve the quality of feedback received by the Review Board through Members Council delegates by eliminating potential sources of misunderstanding. Dr. Younger replied:

We will be posting a video of the presentation to MC after the meeting takes place, so yes, the presentation will be available beyond the MC.

Presentation recordings and materials from Members Council meetings are posted on the OCLC website. Given the quick turn-around time for comments, measured in weeks according to Dr. Younger, I hope OCLC will rush the recording to their website to enable a full dialog among the membership and community.

ICOLC Posts Objections to Proposed Record Use Policy

The ICOLC statement concurs with and supports the extensive document published by an ad hoc ARL task force in January, and calls out three issues in particular:

1. The proposed policy appears to freeze OCLC’s role in the library community based on historical and current relationships.
2. The scope of the proposed policy goes well beyond any concerns about inappropriate commercial exploitation of WorldCat records.
3. The proposed policy is legally murky. There is no mechanism for negotiation of terms and conditions nor is it clear what constitutes acceptance by member libraries. A new policy must address these problems.

The text was modified to remove a link to http://www.oclc.org/memberscouncil/meetings/2009/default.htm on January 28th, 2011.

The text was modified to update a link from http://www.oclc.org/us/en/worldcat/catalog/policy/board/default.htm to http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090318034041/http://www.oclc.org/us/en/worldcat/catalog/policy/board/default.htm on January 28th, 2011.

ARL issued a statement today on the impacts of the global economic crisis on library budgets and the corresponding effect on subscriptions and purchasing patterns. The statement backs up a similar release by ICOLC last month.

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has released a statement on the current global economic crisis and its effect on publishing and library subscriptions. The ARL statement, which is aimed at scholarly publishers and vendors, reinforces some of the key points in a recent statement by the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) and offers additional observations and recommendations from the perspectives of ARL member libraries.

Large libraries are far from exempt from the consequences of the current global economic crisis. Downturns in state support for public institutions along with substantial losses in endowment funds mean that many ARL member libraries are facing substantial reductions in both operating and materials budgets. In addition to cuts already made, there is strong evidence that most ARL member libraries are preparing for further budget reductions in the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

Like the ICOLC statement, the ARL statement^[PDF] includes suggested avenues for publishers (emphasis added).

• ARL calls on publishers to consider carefully decisions to invest in new products, functionality, and marketing efforts. Any new investments need to be strategic and market sensitive. Publishers should base investments on market research that demonstrates demand and takes into account the ongoing economic situation.
• Publishers should go further in reducing the need for outright cancellations by undertaking broad efforts to seek new efficiencies that can result in price reductions in the short as well as long term. As libraries scrutinize their own operations, publishers similarly need to critically examine all of their practices and services to identify ways of reducing expenditures and, with them, prices. One obvious opportunity for reducing operating costs to proportionately lower prices is accelerating shifts to electronic-only publication to reduce overhead of print production and handling.
• ARL reiterates the ICOLC call for price stabilization and advocates real price reductions. Models that stabilize or discount prices for all customers, large and small, are most likely to be attractive in the current economic situation and into the future.
• Libraries serving research organizations are increasingly receptive to models that provide open access to content published by their affiliated authors in addition to traditional subscription access to titles. This kind of model can form a bridge from subscription models to models incorporating author-side payments.
• Responsible publishers and vendors should provide real alternatives to multi-year contracts and a range of options for contract terms, as described in the ICOLC statement.
• Acknowledging the singular budget conditions confronting even the largest libraries, publishers must be open to mid-term renegotiations of contracts.
• The research library community is also concerned that the suddenness and depth of the global economic crisis substantially increases risk for the loss of important scholarly content. Scholarly publishers share with libraries a stewardship responsibility and should accelerate their commitments to third party archiving services as potential for business failure increases.
• Inevitably, libraries will be forced to invoke many contract terms in place for providing ongoing access to previously subscribed content after cancellation. ARL calls on publishers to generously and completely facilitate fulfillment of existing contract terms to provide ongoing access to back issues of cancelled subscriptions and to continue to provide these contract terms.
• Finally, ARL encourages publishers to consult widely with research libraries. Small, not-for-profit publishers are of particular concern, and ARL member libraries welcome conversations regarding new publishing models that can reduce the cost and vulnerability of established publications of high value.

On Monday, January 19th, the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) issued a statement on the impact of the global economic crisis on libraries, with a particular focus on library consortia.

Written on behalf of the many library consortia across the world that participate in the ICOLC, this statement has two purposes. It is intended to help publishers and other content providers from whom we license electronic information resources (hereafter simply referred to as publishers) understand better how the current unique financial crisis affects the worldwide information community. Its second purpose is to suggest a range of approaches that we believe are in the mutual best interest of libraries and the providers of information services.

The statement goes on to outline the observed and expected impacts on libraries:

• We expect significant and widespread cuts in budget levels for libraries and consortia
• These cuts will be prolonged.
• Exchange rate fluctuations are complicating and in some cases amplifying the impact.

The statement offers two principles that, from the perspective of the consortia and their member libraries, will be most effective in dealing with these impacts:

1. Flexible pricing that offers customers real options, including the ability to reduce expenditures without disproportionate loss of content, will be the most successful.
2. It is in the best interest of both publishers and consortia to seek creative solutions that allow licenses to remain as intact as possible, without major content or access reductions.

Lastly, the statement suggests approaches for content providers based on these principles:

• Purchasers will trade features for price.
• Putting price first will help all parties, because budget pressures will drive decisions in a way never seen before.
• Tailoring content to need and pricing accordingly can be very helpful.
• Multi-year contracts will be possible only with clear opt-out and/or reduction clauses.
• While annual payments currently are the most prevalent payment schedule for group licenses, options will be needed for semi-annual or quarterly payment schedules, in combination with more flexible opt-out/reduction clauses and renewal cycles.

The statement itself goes into more details about each of these impacts, principles, and approaches. Wendy Stephens of Buckhorn High School (New Market, Alabama) has written a great analysis of this on the ALA AASL blog. Disclosure: my employer is a signatory to the statement.

The text was modified to update a link from http://www.aasl.ala.org/aaslblog/2009/01/29/in-a-tough-economy-databases-under-threat/ to http://www.aasl.ala.org/aaslblog/?p=354 on January 20th, 2011.

The Google Book Search Settlement Agreement includes two points where library consortia come into play: discounts for institutional subscriptions and receipt of digitized books by members of a consortium. The Google Book Search Settlement calls such consortia “Institutional Consortia” and the definition of that phrase and the places in the Settlement where it occurs are extracted below.

This is a review of the Settlement document as it was submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in the case of The Author’s Guild et al v. Google Inc. The court has given preliminary approval of the Settlement, but it might still change.

Defining “Institutional Consortium”

“Institutional Consortium” means a group of libraries, companies, institutions or other entities located within the United States that is a member of the International Coalition of Library Consortia with the exception of Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) – affiliated networks.

ICOLC is “an informal, self-organized group” of library consortia from around the world. It is made up of consortia that agree with the ICOLC Statement of Current Perspective (as updated December 2001). At the time of writing, it is made up of 206 members.

“Sales of Institutional Subscriptions through Institutional Consortia”

Approved discounts, if any, that Google is authorized to offer to an Institutional Consortium or its members will be included as part of the Pricing Strategy. Additional discounts will require Registry approval. Unless otherwise agreed upon by the Registry, Google is only authorized to offer discounts to Institutional Consortia if members of the Institutional Consortium purchase Institutional Subscriptions for at least seventy percent (70%) of the FTEs (i.e., full-time equivalent students) of the members of the Institutional Consortium. For purposes of this Section 4.5(b)(iv) (Sales of Institutional Subscriptions through Institutional Consortia), absent agreement of the Registry, Google may not offer such discount to any Institutional Consortium (or its members) that was not a member of the International Coalition of Library Consortia as of the date on which the then-current Pricing Strategy became effective and that was formed for the primary purpose of entering into an Institutional Subscription agreement with Google. Google will notify the Registry no less than thirty (30) days prior to entering into an Institutional Subscription agreement, with an approved Institutional Consortium discount, with an Institutional Consortium (or its members) that was not a member of the International Coalition of Library Consortia as of the date on which the then-current Pricing Strategy became effective.

A couple of points that lead up to this.

Institutional Subscription

“The economic terms for Institutional Subscriptions of Books will be governed by two objectives: (1) the realization of revenue at market rates for each Book and license on behalf of Rightsholders and (2) the realization of broad access to the Books by the public, including institutions of higher education.” (Settlement, 4.1(a)(i), p. 42) “Google and the Registry will use the following parameters to determine the price of Institutional Subscriptions: pricing of similar products and services available from third parties, the scope of Books available, the quality of the scan and the features offered as part of the Institutional Subscription.” (Settlement, 4.1(a)(ii), p. 42) “Pricing will be based on FTEs (Full-Time Equivalency). For Higher Education Institutions, FTE is defined as full-time equivalent students.” (Settlement, 4.1(a)(iii), p. 42) “Higher Education Institutions… will be sub-divided into sub-categories based on the Carnegie Classifications…” (Settlement, 4.1(a)(iv)(2), p. 42)

Pricing Strategy

Google and the Book Rights Registry will agree on pricing strategies every two to three years. Elements of the pricing strategy include the target retail price for each of the pricing bands (for higher education the bands based on the Carnegie Classifications), pricing for andy discipline-based collections that Google may propose, the time period through which Google has the authorization to sell subscriptions, expected increases or decreases in price at annual anniversary points during the pricing strategy period, and “the amount of discount, if any, that Google is authorized to offer to institutions and to Institutional Consortia. Any discounts above the approved discount require Registry approval.” (Settlement, 4.1(vi)(1)(e), p. 44)

Institutional Consortia with regards to “Fully Participating Library and Cooperating Library Rights and Obligations”

For any Institutional Consortium that (1) exists as of the Settlement Agreement Date, and (2) with which Google has a Digitization Agreement, Google may provide each Fully Participating Library that is a member of that Institutional Consortium with Digital Copies of Books in that Fully Participating Library’s Collection that Google did not Digitize from that Fully Participating Library’s Collection, provided, however, that a Fully Participating Library may receive an [Library Digital Copy] of all of the Books in its Collection only if at least ten thousand (10,000) Books were Digitized from such Fully Participating Library’s Collection, and (a) if the sum of the Collections for all Fully Participating Libraries in the Institutional Consortium is two million (2,000,000) Books or more, Google Digitizes more than six hundred fifty thousand (650,000) Books from those Fully Participating Libraries’ Collections, or (b) if the sum of the Collections for all Fully Participating Libraries in the Institutional Consortium is fewer than two million (2,000,000) Books, Google Digitizes more than thirty percent (30%) of the Books in aggregate from those Fully Participating Libraries’ Collections. Google will not provide such a Fully Participating Library with a Digital Copy of any Book that is not held by that Fully Participating Library.

At the moment, I think the only consortia that qualifies for this definition is the CIC group.