Developing preferred licensing terms for ebooks and journals/databases at Leeds Beckett University

Purpose The last 10 years has seen much movement from print to electronic journals in Higher Education with most university libraries seeing much reduced print journal holdings and even a complete discard of all print. The move to e-books has increased in the last 5 years but there is still some way to go. With the increase in student fees and the adoption of the student as customer libraries have tried to meet the demand for more e-resources and e-books. However it is no longer just about providing e-resources it’s about providing the right resources. It’s the value to that student. At Leeds Beckett we have found that since their introduction, e-books have been slower to develop than other e-resources and the standard product and licence terms offered by publishers and aggregators are proving less suitable to our University’s needs. At Leeds Beckett we place great emphasis on value for money and accessibility for all which is why we recently began a preferred licensing terms project. Design, methodology or approach Our approach to the preferred licensing terms project was to look at the day-to-day issues we have with e-resources and try to address these with criteria we could present to publishers or providers in an attempt to negotiate licenses with more beneficial terms for us and all our users. At Leeds Beckett our preference is to purchase electronic versions wherever they are available. This approach has its benefits in terms of opening up the Library’s collections to a wider range of users in a host of locations it can also lead to dissatisfaction from users because of different permissions, models, platforms, printing and downloading restrictions as well as effectively closing off access to users with visual impairments. Like many libraries we have been using statistics to assess how well and how hard our e-resources have been working for us. We use ‘dashboards’ to provide particular aspects of e-resource data to library management and Academic Librarians. This provides an easy to understand and access snapshot of information about the performance of our e-resources. E-journal data is more consistent and reliable than that for e-books but the overall trends are clear and e-books are currently providing less value for money than they were 1-2 years ago. To try and address these issues we have instigated a preferred licensing terms project to cover both Ebooks and Ejournals/database/AV content. Using the concept of the JISC model license we wanted to create a document of preferred licensing terms to be used in negotiation with suppliers to ensure we got the best resource and the best accessibility for our money. The aim is to make sure that the resources are working hard for us and that our priorities are recognised by publishers and providers. We have worked with a range of internal stakeholders to try and create a list of criteria which addresses the key needs we and our users face when purchasing and accessing e-resources. We have utilised key resources from the sector including the JISC model licences, documents from JISC TechDis on accessible e-book platforms and examples of our own current best practice. Findings Our findings so far have come from the iterative process of creating the model license. We have devised a checklist of preferred terms which have been split, much like a person specification for recruitment, into ‘essential’, ‘desirable’ and, unlike a person specification, ‘wishlist’. The bringing together of a wide range of stakeholders within the Library has informed the content and the prioritisation of our preferred terms. We have had a success with one of our e-book suppliers and are now able to (legally!) use cover images for publicity purposes. This was one of our preferred terms on our checklist related to ensuring value for money and return on investment through promotion of new e-books on social media. Research or practical limitations or implications One of the main practical limitations is whether, and to what extent, publishers will be willing to work with us. There are some very entrenched views and reluctance, particularly with e-books, to allow access in less restrictive ways. The ‘license’ we create will not be legally binding and there will be nothing to compel publishers to work with us. There could also be a financial limitation to implementing the preferred license. Subscription and licensing costs may increase to reflect new licensing terms, for example higher levels of user concurrency. The increased costs may limit the number of revised licences which can be implemented. The negotiation process may be protracted with discussions over the licence terms, requiring earlier re-negotiation of renewal contracts to avoid loss of access. Conclusions Although still in its infancy we are optimistic that, over time, the use of our preferred terms will increase and improve access to e-resources for our Library users. We have had one success already with the use of cover images for publicity and going forward we hope that, in particular, the area of accessibility for all users can be addressed. Getting input from staff across the Library has been an extremely useful exercise as each person and subject area has their own take on e-provision as it affects them and the students with whom they work. Using our preferred terms checklist we intend to create a matrix to send to suppliers asking them to complete which elements they can provide allowing us to mark them against our criteria and providing us with a basis for negotiation and a platform from which to push for better provision for all users of e-resources both at Leeds Beckett and in the wider sector. Originality and value of the proposal Although there have been some e-book accessibility projects in H.E. and there is the JISC model licence, at Leeds Beckett we wanted to build on the established eJournals licenses to include e-books and create an all-encompassing preferred licence suited to our particular needs. Once devised we hope these preferred licensing terms could be implemented and set a standard for negotiations with publishers to ensure effective accessibility to our e-resources for all our users.