ARL Supports NISO SERU Project to Develop New Mechanism for Buyingand Selling Electronic Resources

[Liblicense-L Listowner <liblicen@pantheon.yale.edu>]

Of possible interest.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2007 16:32:38 -0500
From: ARL Communications <commlmgr@arl.org>

ARL SUPPORTS NISO SERU PROJECT TO DEVELOP NEW MECHANISM FOR 
BUYING AND SELLING ELECTRONIC RESOURCES

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has formed 
a working group on Shared E-Resource Understanding (SERU) to 
develop a best practice statement that will support a new 
license-free mechanism for buying and selling electronic 
resources. The working group will build upon exploratory work 
already done by a group sponsored by ARL, SPARC, the Society for 
Scholarly Publishing, and the Association of Learned and 
Professional Society Publishers.

The SERU best practice statement will not be a license, although 
it addresses many issues common to license agreements. During the 
purchase process, publishers and librarians will be able to 
reference the normative understandings expressed in the best 
practice statement and they may choose to rely on their trust in 
the shared expectations and existing contract and copyright law, 
rather than negotiating and signing a license agreement.

ARL is pleased to encourage this project's efforts to reduce the 
overhead costs-to both libraries and publishers-that are 
attributable to negotiating license agreements. License 
negotiations are appropriate for many e-resource sales but too 
often increase the prices of products, impose needless delays in 
access for users, and raise barriers to publishers' entry into 
the e-resource market.

More information about the SERU project and working group is 
available at http://www.niso.org/committees/SERU/. This site 
includes information on how to sign up to be notified of new 
developments as the project progresses. An FAQ is also available 
at the site.

For more information on ARL's participation in the SERU project, 
contact Karla Hahn karla@arl.org.

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