Licences
SURFdirect has launched various initiatives with respect to licences and developed a number of handy tools. It works closely with SURFmarket and the Licensing Agency for the Dutch university libraries and the National Library of the Netherlands.
• Checklist for negotiations
• Academia licence
• Licensing Agency
Multinational licenses
SURF and the other Knowledge Exchange (KE) partner organisations in Denmark, Germany and United Kingdom (DEFF, DFG and JISC) encourage academic publishers to engage in new business models. New business models and multinational licenses will stimulate Open Access beyond national borders.
In 2007 KE issued a call for tender and in 2008 this resulted in the selection of five publishers and a set of sharp priced multinational contract offerings that include clear open access criteria for education and research. This is a major breakthrough in times of ever increasing subscription fees and restricted availability!
The Knowledge Exchange partners and the five selected publishers agreed to embark on a ‘route to market’ with the innovative licenses. This will happen at national level, in each country involving the specific parties that are eligible to conclude subscription contracts on behalf of the institutions. In September the Netherlands will experience the benefits of these new money-saving, multinational license agreements.
Recently representatives of the Knowledge Exchange organisations spoke about the initiative and about how this work fits in with their wider mission to create a layer of scholarly content for education and research sectors. This roundtable discussion is available as podcast.