Licensing Strategy

Licensing Parameters

BC ELN considers license agreements between all or some of its partner libraries and a vendor if:

• the product or service is of potential use or benefit to BC ELN partner libraries; and
• the consortial price for individual libraries is less than the price they would pay outside of a BC ELN license.

Priority is given to those initiatives that benefit the greatest number of BC ELN partner libraries. Negotiating licenses for resources desired by only a selection of partner libraries is undertaken if human resources permit.

Participation

• Partner library participation in licensing initiatives is optional. In rare cases, a group of databases will be licensed as a bundle; such cases may require that partner sites choose either to license all the databases in the package, or none of them.
• Licensing initiatives may include non-BC ELN partner libraries and consortia when it maximizes the benefit to BC ELN partner libraries. Partnerships with other groups, such as Focused Education Resources (formerly ERAC, the Education Resource Acquisition Consortium), the Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL), or Consortia Canada, may be desirable to avoid duplication of effort, to allow for effective use of consortium resources, or to contribute to the larger community of electronic resource activity.
• Only those libraries sharing in the costs are provided with access to the product.

Database trials

• BC ELN partner libraries should have sufficient time for evaluative trials of electronic products. BC ELN endeavours to arrange for a minimum one month trial period. Access to the trial is posted on the ConsortiaManager agreement page for that product.