A major lawsuit against the nonprofit Internet Archive threatens the future of all libraries. Big publishers are suing to cut off libraries’ ownership and control of digital books, opening new paths for censorship. Oral arguments are on March 20.
Sign on to show your support for the Internet Archive, libraries’ digital rights, and an open internet with uncensored access to knowledge.
“Since forming a global literacy partnership in 2019, Better World Books (BWB) and the Internet Archive have offered a unique pathway for libraries to ensure that the books they no longer need in their collections can be preserved and made accessible for generations to come.
The service that BWB provides is an important one for libraries. BWB collects used books from libraries, booksellers, colleges, and universities in six countries, which are then either resold online, donated or recycled. To date, Better World Books has donated over 35 million books worldwide, has raised close to $34 million for libraries and literacy, and has saved more than 450 million books from landfills. Through the partnership with the Internet Archive, BWB has donated more than one million books each year for preservation and digitization, totaling 4 million books to date….”
Abstract: The value of big deals is increasingly unclear. This article briefly discusses factors others have considered in evaluating big deals and covers the four factors that should be considered moving forward: open access, interlibrary loan, post-termination access, and a-la-carte costs. Unsub, a tool for reevaluating big deals created by the nonprofit OurResearch, is introduced. Lessons learned are shared from two years of helping libraries reevaluate big deals to provide insight into the complexities and tradeoffs involved in evaluating big deals across many libraries.
“Join us for a webinar on November 9 to learn how Internet Archive is now quickly fulfilling Interlibrary Loan (ILL) requests for articles at no charge from libraries that use WorldShare ILL, Tipasa, and ILLiad. Staff at Internet Archive (OCLC symbol: IAILL) supply articles fast—with an average turnaround time of 37 minutes on OCLC’s resource sharing network.”
Oregon State University Libraries, Portland State University Library, and the University of Oregon Libraries are entering into contract negotiations with Elsevier for journal access in 2023, and for up to three years beyond that. For the sake of transparency, we want to reach out to our respective campuses to provide you with the goals we hope to achieve with this renewal cycle.
Slides for a breakout discussion of CDL.
“In September 2021, the CDL Co-Op, a group of librarians and information professionals working on issues of resource sharing, interlibrary loan, and controlled digital lending, announced its Statement on Using Controlled Digital Lending as a Mechanism for Interlibrary Loan, available at controlleddigitallending.org/illstatement. Developed with deep community input, the Statement’s introduction provides context for library use of controlled digital lending (a modern method for libraries to loan digitized items from their print collection to their patrons in a “lend like print” fashion) as a mechanism for Interlibrary Loan. By situating it within the purpose of libraries and the ways they serve their communities and society, the introduction lays the foundation for 10 brief statements that define and affirm the use of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) in library and interlibrary loan (ILL) contexts.
The Statement was developed by the CDL Co-op during 2020 and 2021 in response to community need, and in conjunction with broad library community conversation and feedback. This approach to the development of the Statement increased awareness of controlled digital lending (CDL) in the context of interlibrary loan among librarians and library staff, and also provides an opportunity to improve the services provided by the library resource sharing community by ensuring libraries and consortia are operating from a shared set of assumptions and principles….”
“In a potentially significant development, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and U.S. Representative Anna Eshoo (D-California) this week presented a wide-ranging set of questions to the Big Five publishers regarding their practices in the library e-book market.
In their letter to the publishers the lawmakers reference “the exorbitant costs and burdensome restrictions” that they contend “are draining resources from many local libraries,” and “forcing [libraries] to make difficult choices to try and provide a consistent level of service” to their communities.”
“As negotiations continue between Elsevier and the UK university sector, institutions need to position themselves to ensure that we have a realistic alternative access solution if the decision is to not sign an agreement. But what would happen in the event of a non-renewal scenario? This post explores how we at Cambridge University Libraries are preparing for Plan B and the alternative access solutions we will be providing….
At Cambridge we are doing our best to engage our research communities with the Elsevier negotiation so that any decisions around the deal and potential implementation of Plan B will only take place following communication and engagement with research-active members of the University. If we need to implement a Plan B, it should not come as a surprise; it will be planned and communicated in advance….”
“The pandemic has resulted in a renewed focus on resource sharing among libraries. In addition to joining resource sharing organizations like the Boston Library Consortium, the Internet Archive has started to participate in the longstanding library practice of interlibrary loan (ILL).
Internet Archive is now making two million monographs and three thousand periodicals in its physical collections available for non-returnable fulfillment through a pilot program with RapidILL, a prominent ILL coordination service. To date, more than seventy libraries have added the Internet Archive to their reciprocal lending list, and Internet Archive staff are responding to, on average, twenty ILL requests a day….”
The Open Access Button is now OA.Works!
“The current turn of events points to the future demise of print textbook reserves. It should spur librarians and their faculty colleagues to imagine higher education with fully digital e-reserves and a commitment to born-digital, zero- or low-cost learning materials that all students can equitably afford to access. We should adopt Open Educational Resources (OER) to the fullest extent possible. Together, let us learn from this COVID-19 experience and move forward by eliminating our fragile dependence on course content that commercial publishers refuse to make available to libraries in digital format. Any sustainable future for affordable and accessible digital learning materials must come from within the academy.”
“The current turn of events points to the future demise of print textbook reserves. It should spur librarians and their faculty colleagues to imagine higher education with fully digital e-reserves and a commitment to born-digital, zero- or low-cost learning materials that all students can equitably afford to access. We should adopt Open Educational Resources (OER) to the fullest extent possible. Together, let us learn from this COVID-19 experience and move forward by eliminating our fragile dependence on course content that commercial publishers refuse to make available to libraries in digital format. Any sustainable future for affordable and accessible digital learning materials must come from within the academy.”