Albitz's book is a concise, well structured and clearly written guide to the legal and contractual aspects of licensing e‐content. The book covers US law on copyright, institutional requirements, licence terms, contractual definitions, selection and management of content and model licences. So it is very much concerned with the legal aspects of managing electronic content, far less information technology (IT) infrastructure, for example. It explains very clearly what core concepts mean with examples of licence terms.
What it does not cover is international, European or UK law (or any relevant initiatives outside the USA). It assumes a university context. Fundamentally it is written from the library point of view to understand the language and categories that publishers and intermediaries impose on them. So the chapter on “Identifying your institution and its needs” is more about developing a description of your own service that will make sense to publishers in their terms, than anything about the institution's actual identity. Thus, Appendix III provides a checklist of items a publisher will need to price content, e.g. number of full‐time equivalent students or internet protocal (IP) addresses. The more substantial question of what the library collection strategy is, or what users might want and how to discover this, is not a question that is considered. Indeed, there are only 14 pages on knowing your own institution even in these terms, but there are 46 pages that examine licence terms, such as what is a “liability clause” and why it is there.
As such the book is potentially useful. Yes, it has an American bias and yes it seems to say little in depth beyond the legal complexities. Certainly the cost of the work in UK is somewhat prohibitive. Yet it concisely and clearly explains the core terms and concepts. As an introduction to this jungle it is a clear and calm guide. It could therefore be of use both to the practitioner new to the niceties of contracts and to the student.
