Joint principles for entering into licensing agreements for electronic information and an experiment concerning interlibrary loans in an electronic environment, agreed between the Scientific and Professional Publishers of the Dutch Publishers Association (WPU) and the organisation Innovation Scientific Information Supply (IWI).

Agreed in the WPU/IWI meeting on 16 June 1998

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

The joint objective of the institutions and publishers
The commercial publishers of professional and scientific information ('publishers') and the scientific education and research institutions ('institutions') aim to provide, each from their own perspective, authorised users (as defined in the license) with wide-ranging and unrestricted access to information. The institutions and publishers wish to work together and have fruitful negotiations to realise a better service to students, lecturers and researchers on a sound economic basis for both parties.

Bottlenecks in the transition period
The transition period from a 'print environment' to electronic information requires considerable investments of both publishers and institutions.
The institutions recognise that payment is required for information that is published by commercial publishers, because they have to receive reasonable remuneration for the value they add to the information and to cover the costs they thereby incur. Both publishers and institutions aim to draw up licensing conditions and price models that on the one hand meet the need for publishers to operate on a sound commercial basis while on the other hand conforming with what the institutions are able to afford within reason.
Because the conditions for use of information are partly determined by the price, extent, nature and life-span of the information in question, as well as by the services and technical possibilities the publisher provides, these conditions may differ per publisher.
In any case, substantial and systematic reproduction and provision of the information made available to third parties is not permitted in a way that such reproduction will come into conflict with the normal exploitation of the publisher.
Together the institutions and publishers will aim to solve bottlenecks which may occur. Both parties see good opportunities for finding such solutions by entering into licenses with institutions as part of a consortium.

Joint research
The institutions and publishers aim to jointly collect data and to conduct user and usage research on the basis of which each, from their own perspective, will acquire better insight into the nature and extent of the use of electronic information.

SPECIFIC POINTS OF INTEREST

Definition: authorised users
Only the following two groups of users are authorised access, in any way, the electronic information provided by commercial publishers:

• Anyone associated in any way with the institution and wishes to use the information for scientific research, scientific education or public services of non-commercial nature; and
• third parties, however only within the library (without administrative obligations) and only for scientific research, scientific education or own use of a non-commercial nature.

As soon as the use by third parties assumes proportions that are detrimental to the normal exploitation of the publisher, the institutions are prepared to renegotiate arrangements as necessary.
Admission of the group of third parties referred to above is based on the starting point that the institutions comply in good faith with the licenses entered into and that checks do not have to be carried out continuously.
The institutions will take measures that can be expected from them in reason to fulfil the license conditions or to ensure their fulfilment.

Commercial research and commercial education may be subject to separate conditions.

The institutions will not permit external users outside the library to have access to the electronic information provided by the commercial publishers.

Conservation of integrity of information
The institutions will respect the integrity of the information made available by the publishers. To this end, the institutions will not alter or divide up the contents into different units and will include all copyright notices in their original form.
With due regard for the above, the publishers will not limit the right of the institutions to integrate data into their local infrastructure and information services.

Information on use
The institutions and the publishers are prepared to carry out joint research into usage information in order to be able to analyse the information and its use. These usage figures will be collected in accordance with privacy regulations and agreements made by the parties regarding confidentiality. This includes full guarantees concerning the anonymity of individual users and the confidentiality of their searches.

Rights of use after expiration of the licence
Once the licence has expired the institutions may, in principle, retain the obtained files of electronic journals under the license, provided they continue to conform to the agreed conditions with regard to security and permitted use.
Whether or not the institutions may retain other electronic information that has been obtained under licence depends on the nature of the information and the licence granted.

EXPERIMENT

Experiment for and research into interlibrary loan (ILL) in the digital library
Within the framework of this covenant, parties aim to find a practical solution for the delivery of copies of published information by a library at the request of another library ('ILL') in an electronic environment. To this end the proposal is put forward that publishers, within the framework of an experimental arrangement only and without prejudice of any existing rights, will temporarily allow ILL, whereby the institutions will carry out research regarding the extent of ILL and the actual costs incurred by the institutions. On the basis of this research, it will be attempted to gain insight into the possible effects of ILL for the normal exploitation of the publishers and for the operations of the institutions.

IWI and WPU propose carrying out the experiment for a period of one year.
The experiment applies only to ILL between the members of the associated Dutch university libraries (UKB) and pertains exclusively to the supply of copies of journal articles within the framework of ILL, where the articles in question are generated from a database at one of the UKB libraries or from one of the databases at a third party appointed by the libraries and with permission of the publisher, in which electronic versions of journals are stored, obtained on the basis of a license.

During the experimental period the publishers will not charge a fee to the institutions for ILL fulfilled on the basis of these files by post, fax or in electronic form. The institutions will only charge each other the current internal rates agreed within the UKB (NLG 1 per page).

The experiment will include determining the full extent of ILL (including the number of requests for delivery and requests that have been fulfilled), on the basis of criteria yet to be agreed. As a starting point, a frame of reference will be defined in the form of figures for the total use of ILL with regard to journal articles during the past four years by the libraries working together in the UKB. With regard to the licences required for inter library loan in electronic form, additional individual arrangements can be made as necessary regarding the usage information on a title or article level.

Furthermore, research will be conducted regarding to the actual costs of ILL for the institutions, on the basis of parameters yet to be agreed.

The model outlined above will be evaluated after one year. The primary focus will be on whether the electronic delivery options have resulted in a significant shift in the usage patterns of ILL.

The WPU will recommend to its members and IWI will recommend to its participating institutions to participate in this experiment.