Why Can't I Get My Article Electronically?
Electronic Licensing Issues
You finally have gotten on the bandwagon! You have updated your library's DOCUSER record to show that you can receive articles in all formats — Ariel as well as email and web delivery, both PDF and TIFF. You purchased a new scanner so that you can send electronic copies of articles in your own collection for interlibrary loan. You have received articles via the new "web delivery"; you love getting those email messages from UCLA and other libraries that include a URL showing where you can access the article. All of this is great, but...why are you still getting some requests filled with paper copies sent in the mail instead of electronic versions, especially when you know the supplying library has a subscription to the electronic? This is really frustrating!!!
License agreements for electronic journals may influence how your requests are delivered. (License agreements may impose copying and lending restrictions that have no relation to copyright provisions.) Particularly right now — as we begin a new year in 2003 — libraries throughout the country have new license agreements for their electronic journals. Those license agreements may not allow the "owning" library to send copies of electronic articles out on interlibrary loan.
Just to show the variations in electronic licensing, some of these agreements allow the supplying library to:
- Lend only to academic or other non-commercial, non-corporate research libraries located in the same country
- Lend paper copies only, i.e., non-electronic
- Print paper copies of electronic journal articles and deliver them only via postal mail or fax
- Not lend any article from an electronic copy
The National Library of Medicine vigorously negotiates license agreements that support its mission. NLM has posted its Policy on Acquiring Copyrighted Material in Electronic Format on the web at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/acqcopyrightmat.html.
If you would like to know more about electronic licensing issues in general, look at LibLicense, from the Council on Library & Information Resources and hosted by Yale University. You can visit this site at http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/index.shtml. Coming soon is information on their Interlibrary Loan Project (this link will be made active when the project is complete). And, contact your own organization's counsel with questions you may have about the licensing agreements you sign.
Please contact us at PSRML as well. We're interested in your comments and viewpoints. We will be following this development with great interest, particularly as more libraries are canceling print copies in favor of electronic subscriptions. As things evolve, you should expect some of the unexpected. Don't be surprised! JKK
[Note: For more on electronic journals see the NN/LM page, Ejournals, at http://nnlm.gov/libinfo/ejournals/. For more on electronic document delivery, see the NN/LM page, Electronic Document Delivery, at http://nnlm.gov/libinfo/docline/edd.html.]