The Northeast Research Libraries (NERL) Consortium was organized in the summer of 1996 to jointly license and possibly deploy significant files or collections of electronic materials. The NERL member institutions are all members of the Association of Research Libraries, an organization composed of the principal research libraries in the United States and Canada. NERL is concerned primarily with licensing on-line products and the deployment of online products and services. NERL's primary objective is to obtain the best resources, license terms, and prices possible for our institutions and users.

       Yale University acts as the "anchor" library for NERL and Ann Okerson, Yale's Associate University Librarian, coordinates the efforts of the Designated Representatives from each institution. Member libraries consider the merits of each product for their respective institutions and may or may not participate in consortial purchasing agreements. Some member libraries are in private institutions; others are in public institutions. Licenses may need to reflect the special requirements of various states' laws.

       You may contact any Designated Representative to explain your product or services (see list of designated representatives on web site at: http://www.library.yale.edu/NERLpublic/NERLMembers.html). Please provide an initial detailed description of your existing pricing and service models. If free dial-in demonstrations are possible, please provide that information as well. The Representative will poll NERL's members to determine if there is sufficient interest to proceed further with this resource in a joint licensing mode.

       If there is sufficient interest on the part of NERL members, you will be asked to provide the Representative with a copy of your formal license, including the formal pricing proposal that will apply to NERL.

NERL's Representatives seek the following operating conditions:

• Incentives for early participation.
• Multiple year renewal inducements.
• Ability to be invoiced individually (If there is a definite fiscal incentive for a single billing and payment arrangement, you should indicate this to be the case).
• Where appropriate, maintain existing vendor relationships, e.g., to obtain e-journals through regular periodicals vendors, etc.
• Site licenses that cover all campus users/walk-ins, either by NET ID/password or all institutional IP domains.
• Vendors must seek NERL approval before any acknowledgement in the form of publicity is distributed.

       While we recognize there are many different pricing models currently being applied by information providers to electronic content licensing, we require, where appropriate, that you integrate the principle of a sliding price scale in your proposal, e.g., the more ports (or transactions, or FTE participants, etc.) included in the license, the lower the per unit cost of information provided to our students and faculty. Please take into consideration that initial NERL member participation may be smaller than subsequent participation in months and years to come. All pricing models should be clearly stated and demonstrate how the license will reward NERL's members for aggregating their spending power, both for the initial year of the proposed license and for the years that follow within the proposed contract.

       Many other licensing issues of concern to NERL members are also outlined on our Licensing Guidelines web page . You are invited to consult it when preparing your formal licensing proposal:

http://www.library.yale.edu/NERLpublic/licensingprinciples.html

       Once your formal written proposal is received, you and the NERL Designated Representative will determine whether further information is needed to ensure a complete understanding of your product and licensing terms.

       When it is clear that a significant portion of NERL members are interested in jointly licensing the resource, one or more Designated Representatives will work with you to negotiate any needed changes.

       We believe that through our cooperative efforts, the needs of our users will be well served and that your product/services will receive unparalleled exposure to the best undergraduate and graduate student programs in America. We look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,


NorthEast Research Libraries Consortium
P.O. Box 208240
130 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06520-8240
Ph: (203) 432-1763
Fax: (203) 432-7231
Email: nerl@yale.edu