RE: Interlibrary loans from other institutions' electronic databases?

["Blobaum, Paul" <p-blobaum@xxxxxxxxx>]

I just attended an EXCELLENT videoconference yesterday, September 22, 2004, on licensing digital content, produced the Medical Library Association and College of DuPage <Glen Elyn, IL>.  I thought the program was going to be a snooze but boy was I mistaken.  It was very interesting and informative.  Our local Chicago and South Consortium of health science libraries sponsored a downlink site at a local community college.   It was really a revelation to me that academic institutions are negotiating license agreements to include Fair Use and ILL access rights, and really any other thing that is tradiitional in libraries.  This is a wonderful development that has a lot potential to strengthen a library's mission and  research role in the online environment. 
 
Basically, it depends on how the license agreement with the publisher of the content in construed.  Just because the digital content is listed on a union list doesn't mean the library can lend content.  But it doesn't mean it can't either... Ask and they will tell you.
 
The libraries that have successfully negotiated ILL usage also say they are restricted from emailing an article in PDF format... they have to print it off and then fax it, or ARIEL it.  THey are still working on the publishers on this issue... really a library user isn't going to duplicate the article and send to 1,000 of people, usually. Besides the end user could also rescan the article and misuse it the way it is.  
 
 A lot of the issue about achieving Fair Use and other traditional library rights  is educating the publishers about how libraries are needed for research purposes, that the library isn't going to just email the articles to the whole planet, and that the library is interested in building a mutual beneficial relationship with the publisher.  And on top of that, libraries pay BIG BUCKS for the databases.  
 
 In our library, scarce attention is given to the license agreements... partly because we are so stretched for staff resources at the current time.  When I asked about where our license agreements were...someone said "oh we signed that 10 years ago when we first got a database" and they don't seem to know whats in the license or be able to put their hands on it.  We pay the invoices and talk to the sales reps once in a while, thats that.   I think we need to look at retaining content in a local depository for perpetual use; build that into the license agreement, and try to rebuild a library decimated by budget cuts resulting in a loss of print materials.  
 
For anyone interested, the videotape of the teleconference is on sale... the url for the ordering form is at :
 
http://www.mlanet.org/pdf/ce/licenses_sales.pdf   .  Also, the regional medical libraries of the National Library of Medicine often carry copies of these conferences for lending purposes... other libraries might have copies to lend too in a few weeks.
 
Best,
 
Paul Blobaum
Governors State University Library
University Park, IL

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: Valerie A. Lang [mailto:langval@xxxxxxxx] 
	Sent: Thu 9/23/2004 11:32 AM 
	To: digital-copyright@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
	Cc: 
	Subject: Interlibrary loans from other institutions' electronic databases?
	
	

	Crossover interlibrary loan / copyright issue and yet another "first" for me
	in this role:
	
	Is it permissible for one academic institution to request journal articles,
	via interlibrary loan, from a specific electronic database, held at another
	institution?
	
	E.g., A local university subscribes to JSTOR, we do not.  Would it be a
	violation of copyright to request full text articles from this institution's
	JSTOR database?  I would think the terms of licensing agreements could
	preclude this and the amount of journal articles requested would determine
	whether fair use principles would allow it or not. 
	
	Thank you in advance.
	
	
	Valerie A. Lang
	Librarian / Instructor
	Dwight Marvin Library
	Hudson Valley Community College
	Troy, NY  12180
	Phone: 518.629.7319
	Fax: 518.629.7509