Ebooks in libraries

[JQ Johnson]

Bill Drew writes:

>Paint me stupid if that is what I am, but hasn't access always been
>controlled by technology?

I think the issue here is that some of us see very rapid change in the
legal and technological landscape that undermine fundamental assumptions
libraries have made for a hundred years.  We also see many librarians who
don't realize that the change is occuring.  In general, our perception is
that the change is shifting the power balance in favor of publishers and
away from libraries, making it much harder to achieve a licensing
agreement that is satisfactory to the library.

Let's take a concrete example:  have you read UCITA, or at least the
summary of it that is available various places on the web (e.g.
http://www.4cite.org)?  In those states in which UCITA is enacted into law
we have a legal regime where it's easy for a publisher to make an eBook
available with a click-wrap license that radically limits the rights of
the reader.  It is very hard for a library used to purchasing books to get
into the mindset that books are now licensed rather than purchased; we
still tend to think in terms of outdated concepts like copyright and first
sale rights.  It's even harder to negotiate a satisfactory license, since
the license terms may not even be seen until the reader "opens" the book;
UCITA creates a de facto "take it or leave it" licensing environment where
the consumer's only option is to return the eBook for a refund if the
license terms aren't satisfactory.

JQ Johnson                      Office: 115F Knight Library
Academic Education Coordinator  mailto:jqj at darkwing.uoregon.edu
1299 University of Oregon       phone: 1-541-346-1746; -3485 fax
Eugene, OR  97403-1299          http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/