E-Resources Priorities & Expectations Statement: Requests for New or Enhanced Access to a Particular E-resource or Aggregator
Updated 05/2014 - under review as of 3/24/23
Introduction
The purpose of this document is to communicate a clearly worded statement concerning the priorities of, and the expectations for, the E-Resources staff in the Acquisitions and E-Resources Licensing Services Unit (AERLS). Please note that the terms "e-resources staff" and AERLS staff are both terms used in this document to describe staff involved in acquisition of e-resources. The primary audience for this document will be CUL stakeholders in the acquisition and maintenance of e-resources - both monograph and serial titles, either accessed individually or in packages. These stakeholders include, but are not limited to: selectors, curators, public services staff, and other LTS units and managers. The document structure matches the lifecycle of these products: trial, review of purchase request, licensing, acquisition, activation, add to discovery systems, maintenance. In each step we articulate expected service and common exceptions. Most requests submitted to the E-Resources Unit require two weeks or less to process to the point of access for the patron. There are many reasons why a request may take longer (see text below). If a request takes longer than two weeks the selector may request an explanation and estimate. Please note, this document does not include processing for e-books ordered through POOF, ???, ...please see directions here; Kanopy streaming videos are handled via email to e-resources@cornell.edu.
Trials
The official Trial form is located here: https://confluence.cornell.edu/x/BAB4Ag
If you require assistance setting up a trial, including support for IP-based trials with off-campus access, please contact the e-resources staff at e-resources@cornell.edu .
Review of Request: 2 days
A selector submits a Networked Electronic Resource Form (NERF) to request the purchase of a new e-resource. The use of the NERF enables multiple staff to view new requests; and it serves as a record of resources selected for the collection, which can better monitored and tracked until acquisition and activation. The selector should indicate a price or estimated price of the resource, funds to be used to purchase the resources, and the URL and name of the resource. Assuming all required information is included, E-Resources staff will review the request and assign it to other AERLS staff as needed within 2 days. The NERF is our primary work flow channel for new requests. Submissions sent outside of the NERF (e.g., via email) require additional effort, are not systematically tracked, and therefore, can be expected to take longer than two days to review.
The NERF should also be used when there is a change to an existing e-subscription or package. Examples include, change to number of simultaneous users and changes which affect price and or content. For changes from print and e subscriptions to e only or cancellations, please send request to ltsser-l.
Licensing: 2-21 days
"Pre-licensing": AERLS staff may need to inquire if a site license is needed. This process may be quick if Cornell has an existing relationship and license with the vendor. Also, if access appears to be restricted to individual user log-ins, we will ask if site/institution-wide access is available.
"Licensing": Licensing involves reading and analyzing a legal document that must be agreed to in order to use the resource in question. There is often a period of negotiation between the library and the resource provider to ensure that the license terms are agreeable to both parties. Negotiations can frequently take considerable time due to the number of parties involved. Terms that frequently require some negotiation include, but are not limited to:
- Site Definition: We prefer that "Cornell University" is defined as the Ithaca Campus, Geneva Campus, Medical College in NYC, Medical College in Doha, Cooperative Extension offices in NY, and all other Cornell offices and departments, regardless of location.
- Verify Pricing: Resource pricing is usually verified and sometimes negotiated by the selector, prior to the acquisition process, but some details may need to be confirmed and sorted out during the licensing phase.
- Non-Disclosure Clause, or Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA): NDAs violate the library's principles of transparent and fair pricing. See https://library.cornell.edu/libraries/policies/nondisclosure-clauses/ for more information.
- Walk-in users: As part of our Land Grant mission, we allow members of the general public to access electronic resources when they are on site.
- Remote Access: We require that resources be accessible to Cornell users from off-campus, preferrably via our EZ-Proxy system.
- Jurisdiction: Contract Law (including these licenses) in the US is governed by the state and each state has different laws and interpretations of terms. For a number of reasons, we prefer to have our licenses fall under NY state jurisdiction.
- Indemnity: To protect the University from certain risks, we ask that Cornell not be held liable for inappropriate use of licensed resources by our users as long as we made reasonable efforts to meet our license obligations and did not facilitate the inappropriate use.
- "Scripted resources": These are resources that only allow access via user name/password rather than the preferred method of IP access. The user name/password combination is written into a script which is accessed via the url in the Voyager record. We may need to contact the publisher to make sure that we can provide access to the entire library community. Some publishers may require that we limit access to one computer. We also need to determine if scripting is technically feasible.
- "Archival rights": Archival rights to purchased or subscribed content have become increasingly important. Our rights need to be well understood and/or established whenever possible, particularly for full text resources.
Licenses cover a wide-range of permissions and restrictions, covering different library and campus services, such as reserves, interlibrary loan, and course packs. Each license needs to reviewed with these considerations.
Problems vary across disciplines. The academic community is not the primary client base for many specialized resources. As such, the pricing and licensing negotiations often take many communications to ensure access works smoothly in the academic environment. Some special scripting needs and access limitations often are a result. In other cases, some smaller society operations are less prepared to license and provide stable access to a large academic community. Med resources often need quotes, site restrictions and sometimes consultation with CU Med. An aspect which sometimes lengthens the process is getting price quotes, FTE counts (sometimes quite specific), discovering "new" packages during the ordering or licensing process or changes to existing packages due to a new order (and then needing to get more than the initial selector involved). We've also had resources (some societies and trade organizations/publishers) who do not permit institutional access although online access is available to individuals and/or individual members.
Any of the above might require ongoing communication with the selector(s) to verify details necessary to move the resource acquisition forward.
Acquisition: 2 days
When licensing is completed e-resources staff will create a FOLIO payment record. Staff will also contact the publisher or vendor to establish an order. Actual payment of the invoice depends upon when the publisher or vendor sends the invoice to the AERLS unit. Often, a bib record will be created which can be used as a preliminary record for cataloging, but it will remain suppressed until the resource is active. E-resources staff send request to OCLC to update the EZproxy file as needed when these preliminary records are created.
Activation: 2-42 days*
The publisher enables access for our IP ranges. The publisher may do all of the work for us, or e-resources staff may need to create an administrative account and then proceed to activate titles (either a batch of titles, or individually). In many cases, once a resource is activated, patrons will have access to a FOLIO record which might be enhanced with further cataloging. Journal and e-book MARC records which depend on batch loading (i.e., any records we get from EBSCO), will not be available until the next month's record load. If a patron requires immediate access, AERLS staff will e-mail a URL with the "proxy" (remote access) string and/or a supply a record in Voyager.
Type A: 1-2 days. Many of the larger publishers will activate access to electronic resources as soon as we have indicated our intent to purchase or subscribe. Often, the access is immediate, or it may take a day or two for the publisher's technical staff to activate access.
Type B: 2-14 days. Usually the publisher is willing to activate access even if they have not yet received our payment. However, the publisher may require additional information from us first, which adds to the delay. We may need to contact the journal vendor, for instance, to ask them to provide the publisher with a check number or order number. Also, we may need to create an account on the publisher's site, which might involve acquiring our subscription number (from the publisher or journal vendor), and then setting up a Cornell IP-based account.
Type C: 14-42 days. We order a product and process the payment, which can either go directly to the publisher, or be handled by a journal vendor; however, the publisher may be unwilling or unable to activate our account until they have received and processed our payment. The time delays may be caused by the time it takes to process a payment at Cornell (usually two weeks for a check to be sent out) as well as the time it takes for the publisher to process the payment on their end, which can vary greatly, especially for smaller publishers with fewer staff.**
* start date for activation might be set for weeks or months in the future, particularly for those resources whose subscriptions and/or acquisition are based on the calendar year of the content, but all the work is already completed. Also, some resources acquired through consortia have specific subscription periods associated with them.
** when there are exceptions to this acquisition/activation process, the selector will be notified.
Add to FOLIO: 2 days
The bibliographic record is either added to FOLIO immediately after the resource becomes active or will be added to Voyager as part of a batch process. The batch processes, such as the EBSCO records load for titles in ejournal and ebook packages, are loaded into FOLIO monthly. If new FOLIO License and Agreement records are needed, e-resources staff will add them; otherwise "agreement lines" will be added to FOLIO Agreements to help keep track of our acquisitions . When this step is completed, e-resources staff "close" the issue in the tracking system.
Add to "Database Names"
Some resources, mostly databases, may qualify for inclusion in the Database Names listing on the library page. Database Names requests, generally, are handled once all licensing, payment, activation, and FOLIO updating activities are complete. Based on written guidelines, the AERLS liaison to the InterDisciplinary Team (formerly the Database Review Committee (DRC))-- the CUL body that curates the Database list -- will bring the request to the attention of the InterDisciplinary Team members, who then vote on the matter.
Maintenance
Staff monitor the LIBIT-L email list and the LibAnswers E-Resources Troubleshooting queue during normal business hours. During the work week, staff respond to reported problems within 24 hours. Resolution of access problems for existing resources is given priority. If there is a problem with a bibliographic record or holdings (or lack thereof), please notify libit-l and staff will investigate.