Re: Heads up: Nature license and confidentiality

[Debi Baker <ddbaker@uoregon.edu>]

Seems to me there are several vendors who already take a "take it 
or leave it" attitude with licenses!  Transparency has the 
potential to lead to this type of knee-jerk reaction but I 
believe the publishing community is, generally, more customer 
oriented than that.

There are many reasons an institution or group may negotiate 
certain terms and probably as many reasons another institution or 
group does not.  Foremost is likely experience -- one does not 
know what one can have if one does not ask or does not know to 
ask.  It is not until undesired outcomes occur that it may result 
in gaining experience to know what should be negotiated.

We find that being as transparent as possible with our members 
and peers leads to greater understanding, fewer 
mis-communications, builds trust and educates.  In addition, we 
have legislated public access laws that we need to ensure to 
meet.

For what it's worth.

********************************************************************
Debi Baker				Orbis Cascade Alliance
Projects Manager			ddbaker@uoregon.edu
1299 University of Oregon               voice: (541) 346-1832
Eugene, OR 97403-1299                   fax:   (541) 346-1968
********************************************************************

On Tue, 29 Aug 2006, Joseph Esposito wrote:

  Transparency is great, right?  The catch is, once you post the
  information, you can't negotiate any terms ever again.  Think
  about it:  every term of every license is there for the world to
  see.  One client insists on negotiating one item.  Then all other
  clients insist on renegotiating that item.  The unintended
  consequence of posted terms is that they become inflexible.  I
  doubt many libraries would be happy with publishers posting "take
  it or leave it" terms.  But that's where this is headed.

  Joe Esposito