RE: Heads up: Nature license and confidentiality

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

> Is there any place in your thinking for what one might call a 
> "loyalty " programme.

<snip>

> In your mind is a university wrong if it wants aggressively to 
> negotiate the price based on their rather large commitment to a 
> given publisher? Do you really think they should pay the same 
> price as everyone else?

Absolutely not.  I'm all for negotiated pricing, and I think it's 
perfectly fair for publishers to offer different prices to 
different customers.  What I object to are license terms that 
require libraries to keep the terms of the agreement (including 
pricing) secret.  Again: I'm spending the public's money.  I 
think the public has a right to know the terms under which I'm 
spending it.  And even if I'm spending private money, I want to 
reserve the right to tell my colleagues whether or not I was able 
to get Publisher X to take out its indemnity clause, or to give 
me a discount.

Nature has made subtle changes in the new version of its license 
that would make such conversations impossible.  Anyone who signs 
it as currently written will not be able to talk about the 
license fee or about the license terms.  This is what I find 
unacceptable, and I hope others will as well.  I figure the time 
to talk about it is now, while we still can.

----
Rick Anderson
Dir. of Resource Acquisition
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
rickand@unr.edu