Licensing lies at the heart of current practice and debate in library and information provision. This is partly because it is legal (above all about the control of copyrighted content, and control over and access to it) and partly because it is financial (above all because access to content and subscriptions and budgets are always in the minds of managers). Where these issues become “ethical” is one of the particular features of this interesting collection of articles. Ethics, and not only applicable law, arise in the overarching relationship between (simply) content providers (publishers, database companies, content aggregators, and vendors) and information providers (like libraries, particularly non‐commercial ones), and in their relationships with customers and users of all kinds.
It is ethical to argue that some of the fees charged by content providers (the Elsevier debate is notable) and the attempts to control and extend copyright (the Eldred case springs to mind) become unreasonable for library and information providers whose budgets are limited and, again arguably, whose role as intermediaries and advocates for information access as part of scholarly communication is critical for democracy itself. This, ultimately, is an aspect of the open access debate and of the information and digital commons debate stimulated by Lessig and others. Are there ways in which the parties can negotiate flexible licences and subscription models so that realistic and fair agreements can be established which address the “intersection of values” that, ethically, the parties seem to represent?
Just in case things get rather abstract, this collection focuses on inter‐library loans, fair use and first sale doctrine issues, and archival and content rights and access. In an era of high fees, the issue of fair prices and access take on clear ethical dimensions. With a mainly US context here, even the law seems to be moving in favour of content providers, as UCITA (the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act) and other law suggests (posing that familiar dilemma that what is legal is not always ethical).
These are undeniably important issues for any information manager, and this collection does a good job in opening our eyes, or reminding us, of them. It is a strangely arranged sequence of what are otherwise, with one exception, thoughtful and useful articles. Tighter editing would have put them in the best order, but, even so, we have them, and the soft‐cover version is value‐for‐money, even though events (above all legal ones) move on fast. Licensing has come to centre‐stage, reflecting both the need to pin down agreements between librarians and vendors/content providers more precisely in legal terms, and the copyright stakes themselves – this content (like databases) is “must‐have” rather than “want‐to‐have”.
Things have changed in recent years (from traditional inter‐library loans to e‐reserves, consortia have sprung up with multi‐layered needs, and e‐books and proxy servers present new challenges to the parties). Managers in libraries cannot “not know” these days what is what. Producers are driving forward a strong agenda for control which might limit access to premium content. Provider and vendor power seems underpinned by relevant US law, making negotiability over fair use and archival rights more complex. Framing and interpreting contracts (never easy) is more challenging than ever (some guidance here in at least two articles).
The general debate may be familiar to some readers, so the collection offers even more: as well as discussing inter‐library loan and e‐book licensing, it examines the good and less good impact of model licences, the role of the Copyright Clearance Center (its Rightslink service is regarded as helpful), and, best of all probably, it describes some of the ERM (electronic rights management) initiatives taken by libraries to manage things better, strengthen their negotiating position, and demonstrate effectiveness to users (such things as tracking licence permissions, access and authorization, and in growing local development databases). Exemplars of this, like the Gold Rush suite (Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries) and the Innovative Interfaces ERM project with the University of Washington and others, are described in one article (with reproduction screen displays). There is a useful piece on consortial licensing.
Effective management in this field incorporates the legal and the financial, and these interweave in the book as well as having two articles which bring out pricing well (one pricing models for e‐journals, with a short bibliography of sources on economic pricing, and the other on pricing e‐books). Ethics pervade the issues raised here – which on the surface are managerial, legal, and financial – but underneath are challengingly ethical. Advice is for managers to be more proactive and inventive, because, it seems, things are stacked against them unless they are.
