Licensing and Managing Electronic Resources

Albitz's Licensing and Managing Electronic Resources is a welcome addition to the growing list of titles intended to help librarians deal with electronic resources. As anyone involved in collection development knows, an increasing number of magazines, journals and books are now available electronically. Because these tend to be licensed, as opposed to being purchased outright, librarians who work with electronic resources need to have an in‐depth understanding of the implications of different license clauses, as well as understanding how to manage the resulting collections. Albitz begins by discussing US copyright law and the meaning of “fair use”, particularly in a library context. She then discusses the importance of understanding the institutional context, including the nature of the organization and its approach to contracts, the number and type of potential users of electronic resources, and the network and security infrastructure, which may impose some limitations on the contract provisions. Typical license clauses are discussed in the next chapter, using a model license to illustrate key points, followed by a practical guide to negotiating contracts. These two substantial chapters are one of the book's main strengths. The final chapters cover selecting and managing electronic resources and the use of model licenses (as opposed to publisher or vendor licenses). Her suggestions for managing a collection review process show that she is well aware of the increasing importance academic staff place on access to electronic resources, and their reluctance to lose this, saying that “once gone, they [i.e. journal titles] will be missed”. Albitz is an experienced electronic resources librarian, and this is evident in the common‐sense way she discusses the issues. She makes the sensible suggestion that the library nominate someone familiar with both the subject area and the review process to handle complaints if electronic journals are cancelled, and that this person should be prepared to offer alternatives, such as using interlibrary loan or print collections if necessary. I was pleased to see that she discusses the importance of perpetual or archival access, and describes library archive projects such as LOCKSS and CLOCKSS. As we might expect from her background, the book has been written for an American audience, and, perhaps more importantly, is aimed at academic libraries. While she discusses the key issues in managing electronic resources in this specific context, there is nothing for the public librarian, who is also likely to want advice on this topic. I spotted one incorrect reference to a section of the model license, but overall the book is clearly written. The list of references is short (only 6 items), suggesting that the intended audience is practitioners, rather than academics or students. Includes a subject index. Recommended for American academic librarians, particularly people dealing with licensing electronic resources for the first time, and for comprehensive library studies collections.