Royalty costs for E-Reserve items?

Tue Apr 15 17:57:49 EDT 1997

Pat:

*(I also think perhaps the Army should pay a little more attention to the costs 
*and benefits associated with a "completely digital library" -- someday, maybe, 
*but completely digital at this point in time is highly questionable both in 
*feasibility and public expense.)

     I can understand your position.  When I first came on board this 
     project, I was overwhelmed by the amount of the tax-payer's money the 
     Army was pouring into their distance learning project.  But, in the 
     Army's defense, now that I've learned more about it, I believe it to 
     be a sensible project.

     I'm sitting in a room at San Antonio's Fort Sam Houston with a 
     webmaster and a graphics artist, and we're making a distance learning 
     tool for the Army's Center for Healthcare, Education and Studies.  
     That's the program that turns out Army doctors, nurses and field 
     medics in conjunction with Baylor University.  It also provides 
     continuing education for all Army medical personnel.  The other 
     branches of the US military service also take advantages of CHES' 
     educational services on occasion. 

     The digital library is going to be an integral part of the Distance 
     Learning tool, accessible through the CHES web page and a 2D School 
     House (which will soom be a 3D school house).  This tool has many 
     benefits for the Army.

     1)  It will provide a central location for many military medical and 
     non-medical documents and instructional material that will be 
     accessible to their personnel world wide.

     2)  It will permit distance learning, enabling service men and women 
     to take courses from the places where they are stationed, rather going 
     to the expense of transporting them to Fort Sam for course work.  
     (Many lectures are taking place through teleconferences.)

     3)  It will accelorate the speed of some of its course work, as a lot 
     of training is being completely redesigned to this new format. 

     4)  It will provide informational support to personnel stationed in 
     parts of the world where countries' whole infrastructures have been 
     devastated by the ravages of war (such as Bosnia).

     5)  It's providing me with a job that's going to look just fabulous on 
     my resume.

     So I feel that the value of this project is well-worth the expense 
     going into its creation.  When you look at how much money the Army 
     spends on weapons of destruction, I think they're getting a good deal 
     with this project.

     And the people working on the project aren't making a heck of a lot of 
     money at this point in time.  (I'm only bringing in 30k now, but 
     believe me, I'm going to ask for a lot more when my contract is up for 
     renewal in October.  ;->)  For example, the webmaster (who used to be 
     a science researcher) and I are former Texas State Employees who 
     really needed work when we signed on with this military contract 
     company.  We didn't know how big this project would become when we 
     first started it out.  Heck.  I'm a cataloger by training and 
     experience.  This is a real learning experience for everyone involved.

     One thing that has absolutely amazed me is how poorly organized the 
     Army's information structure (at least at the library end) really is.  
     There are a couple of little libraries on this base, and other 
     librarians working on their little projects--but they aren't really 
     connected with each other or with what's going on with libraries and 
     library projects at other bases.  I'm trying to bring other librarians 
     on the base into this project--at least to the extent that we won't be 
     duplicating effort in some areas--but everyone seems so defensive.  
     Sigh ....

     The Army is really going to make itself a stronger institution with 
     this project.  I've always believed that an education is a nation's 
     best defense.  And by putting so much positive, well-planned energy 
     into this library/educational product, I firmly believe that the Army 
     will be providing a better service to itself and to the country.

     Carolyn

  --------------------------------------------------------------------- 
  Patrick W. Costigan, Medical Librarian  **All opinions are my own, but 
  North Memorial Health Care              **you are more than welcome 
  3300 Oakdale North                      **     to share them. 
  Robbinsdale, Minnesota  55422
  pat.costigan at cl.nmmc.com   Voice 612-520-5678    Fax 612-520-1453

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Royalty costs for E-Reserve items?
Author:  jpearce at u.washington.edu at The-World 
Date:    4/15/97 11:38 AM

> From: Carolyn_Gonzalez at medcom1.smtplink.amedd.army.mil
>      I'm in the process of organizing a completely digital library for the 
>      US Army's Center for Healthcare Education & Studies.  [snip]
>      
>      As far as copyright goes, the library has a membership with the 
>      Copyright Clearance Center.  This costs us $105 a year, plus $1.80 per 
>      request for clearance, in addition to any royalty fee the copyright 
>      holder wants to add.  I haven't requested copyright clearance for the 
>      stacks of journal articles these instructors are waiting to send me, 
>      (We're just now getting ready to order the SIRSI product.) but once I 
>      do, I'll be able to let you know what kind of royalties people want to 
>      tack on for electronic access to their materials.  When I request 
>      copyright clearance, I'll be specifying that I'll be making electronic 
>      copies.

I would be *very* interested in finding out what the cost difference 
is for electronic vs.. print royalties.  The U. of Washington Health 
Sciences Library is working on a pilot project putting a few articles 
on Reserve.  Personally, I would like to see us do much more, but the 
copyright questions need to be resolved first.  If the electronic 
royalty costs are substantially lower than multi-copy print, we might 
consider avoiding the Fair Use issue entirely by just getting the 
rights. 

I was glad to see Brian Neilsen's view that Fair Use includes serving 
documents to a specific class electronically.  This is where I hope 
copyright law winds up.  Have there been any court cases testing it 
yet?

John Pearce

P.S.  If you're interested in E-Reserves specifically, check out the 
list in the cc: line.