License to Deny?
Publisher restrictions on
document delivery from
e-licensed journals
Lynn N. Wiley
The author
Lynn N. Wiley is the head of the Information Resource Retrieval
Center at the main library, University of Illinois Urbana
Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA.
Keywords
Interlending, Licensing, Electronic journals, Copyright law
Abstract
The licensing of electronic journals is affecting interlibrary loan
and document delivery services. This article reports on a survey
done in 2003 at 13 large research libraries on how licensing
affects both the lending and borrowing operations at those
libraries. A brief history on copyright legislation and guidelines
as they relate to ILL are provided as background on how licenses
can undermine the copyright support libraries have needed to
provide the services users require. ILL data is presented to
illustrate that the volume of use per title is not what publishers
may imagine. The shift to leasing electronic titles and therefore
the requirements that underlie licensing are still relatively new;
the article recommends that libraries take every opportunity to
converse and negotiate with publishers as access evolves.
Electronic access
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is
available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-1615.htm
Introduction
You work in interlibrary loan and you couldn’t get
a library to fill an article request recently, it’s a title
available online, was that a factor in lack of a fill? In
your other role as a lender, hard pressed already
to keep up with requests, are you able to navigate
around the licenses for the electronic titles you
know about that may restrict ILL? Technology
makes some things easier in resource
sharing ...others harder as it turns out.
This paper explores a number of issues relating
to digital content licensing in libraries and
specifically how these affect article supply via
interlibrary loan and document delivery. It reports
on the results of a survey done by an academic
consortium on licenses for electronic serial titles,
the identification of any restrictive ILL clauses and
the daily problems experienced as a result, as well
as potential future issues. Information on both the
lending and borrowing experience was collected.
The results are summarized with conclusions and
recommendations for follow up. A brief history on
copyright legislation and guidelines as they relate
to ILL are provided as background on how licenses
can undermine the copyright support libraries
have needed to provide the services users require.
Survey on licenses and ILL
Colleagues across a group of 13 large research
libraries in the Midwest of the USA were interested
in what each was experiencing in navigating the
restrictions placed on their ability to share their
serial titles because of licenses. The group wanted
to inform each other on local practices that
affected request fulfillment. The group also
wanted to take the summary data back to their
administrations as an update on interlibrary loan
and document delivery issues. A brief survey was
developed. The results are presented here as an
indication of what some major research libraries
are experiencing in fulfilling ILL requests from
online journals.
License content availability
The content of the licensing information is hard to
come by in a way that is useable to ILL Office staff
Interlending & Document Supply
Volume 32 · Number 2 · 2004 · pp. 94–102
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited · ISSN 0264-1615
DOI 10.1108/02641610410538559
The author gratefully acknowledges the help of ILL
colleagues at the CIC Libraries in the USA in
reviewing and then participating in the survey. The
CIC is the Committee on Institutional Cooperation,
and full information on the CIC Center for Library
Initiatives is available at: http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/
programs/CenterForLibraryInitiatives/
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