Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians, 2nd ed.

Citation

Azzolini, J. (2010), "Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians, 2nd ed.", The Electronic Library, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 466-468. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471011052061

In a society overlaid with networked digital knowledge and services, perhaps no issue presents a more vexing ambiguity to information professionals than the nexus of licensing relationships and electronic resources. It is a meeting point with wide‐ranging yet unresolved implications: steadily advancing technology confronts the slowly evolving law that regulates contractual relationships. Librarians at many institutions find themselves being assigned the responsibilities of negotiating and managing these licensing arrangements. Often they accept these roles without clear guidance from management, let alone any related legal training or experience. There is a definite need for conceptual grounding and proven practical advice for such “accidental” licensing coordinators.

In her second edition of Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians, Lesley Ellen Harris gives librarians a worthwhile primer, gently illuminating an area notorious for its convoluted phrasings and curiously worded definitions. With 127 pages of main text, it's a slim but self‐assured book focusing on the nuts and bolts from the librarian's point‐of‐view. Discussion is kept focused on how grasping the mechanics of the library‐content owner licensing transaction will provide a firm base from which relative beginners can successfully navigate the process.

Remaining faithful to her aim of guiding the reader through the whole process, Harris starts off with a chapter on when a license agreement is called for in the first place. As such agreements are initiated whenever the content of others is going to be “used” in some way, it's made clear that they are now an everyday factor in collection management. The author lays out the “key elements” that libraries should seek in licensing digital content. These broadly relate to ease of access, “one‐stop” transactions, clear definitions of permitted uses, access beyond the agreement's termination, and liability or responsibility for the content's use. These elements will inform much of the advice in the subsequent chapters. Particularly enlightening is a section on the distinctions between, and positive and negative aspects of, model licenses, standard licenses, and licensing principles.

Chapter two offers a straightforward needs‐based approach to licensing's practical features. It emphasizes the “simple steps” of comprehending the needs of the library and its patrons as well as those of the content owner, and then making a sound compromise between them. It also covers the stages of implementing a licensing policy (and includes a helpful draft policy) and clears up several common misconceptions about agreements.

The next three chapters admirably deliver the marrow of the book's demystifying utility. “Learning the lingo” explains the core concepts of license agreements in general, such as consortia, exclusivity, licensor, and privity of contract. “Key digital licensing clauses”, the author's longest chapter, clarifies several provisions as they are commonly defined in an electronic licensing context. This is followed by a chapter on fundamental contract provisions (“boilerplates”) that, like the section before it, contain boxed licensing tips.

Attentive to many librarians' anxiety over the notion of haggling with content owners, Harris includes a chapter on understanding – and thereby becoming comfortable with – the negotiation stage of licensing. She follows this with an informal summary of the book's numerous practical points in a Q&A format.

Licensing Digital Content is an exceptional resource for those tasked with electronic licensing responsibilities but lacking familiarity with the basic lay of the land. From the vantage of substantial field experience, the author stresses the importance of “plain English” provisions and workable strategies implemented with a solid knowledge of one's own institutional needs and constraints. This is a sensible, magnanimous book, recognizing the validity of both sides of the licensing transaction. The guiding goal is “fair access at a fair fee”.

Let us hope Lesley Ellen Harris continues to update this great little guide with future editions. Considering how she takes on the shifting landscape with such professional facility, these new editions would give librarians something to look forward to.