I agree with Phoebe that in general no university will be able to do that. Let me add some details, since licensing these materials has for years been my professional specialty--ever since first such electronic journals have been available. .
The normal licensing arrangement with a university for most publisher is that permission is granted for use of the material for any actual current member of the university, and, often, for anyone with permission to use the university library who is actually present in the library. This is typically enforced by a combination of i.p. -based access fir the university's domain, supplemented with access through a proxy server for those physically outside the domain--the access to the proxy server is normally controlled by the university identification system.
The contract is usually quite specific about who will count as a member of the university--normally current full or part time students, staff, and faculty. The university undertakes to enforce access via the server appropriately, and all universities take this quite seriously. It is also usually possible to obtain a certain number of individual passwords for designated individuals, with the university guaranteeing their proper distribution, as a means of bypassing the proxy server. Neither the publishers nor the universities usually like this, because of the nuisance of administration.
Some publishers insist on further restrictions--typically not permitting what is called walk-in access to those who may have access to the library, but are not university members. some universities also for reasons of their own prefer not to give such people access even when the publisher permits it.
Additional restrictions are sometimes present, especially for the most expensive material, such as patent of chemical databases: a limit to the number of simultaneous users, an absolute restriction to campus use only, a further absolute restriction to use within the library building only, or even a restriction of the use at a limited number of designated workstations, or even a single workstation. Typically, the cheaper the material ,the more flexible the arrangements.
Payment is normally based upon one of three mechanisms: 1/ total head count numbers of students plus faculty on a per-person basis, 2/ bands of large/medium/small university size-- generally also taking into consideration whether it is a research university likely to make extensive use, or just an undergraduate college, and 3/ sometimes for the less expensive titles, a flat rate per journal.
I cannot imagine that most publishers will be willing to permit off-campus access from members of the public, even were the university willing to pay for it at an increased price. I won't say it is absolutely impossible, but I have negotiated many contracts and never even attempted such a provision.
Similarly, I cannot imagine a reputable university prepared to try to cheat or equivocate on such provisions. I would certainly have refused to assist any such request. although there is a certain degree of adversary relationship with publishers as in any situation involving vendors and purchasers, there is also reliance upon good fait of the parties involved. The contracts usually require the university to assist in the investigation of breeches of the contract (these attempts are not uncommon--people will try to download extremely large bodies of material, sometimes for personal use, sometimes for the purpose of small or even large scale illicit redistribution) -- and the universities cooperate. (The contracts usually provide for cancellation of service if they do not so cooperate, but such cooperation is also seen as reasonable. There have been a few very large scale breeches over the years. We do not talk much about the details.) There is a difference between resenting the profits of commercial publishers, and being willing to steal their property. WPedians with their emphasis on copyright observance should well understand this. .
Public libraries are typically changed for remote access per head count of the population served, at a reduced rate from that for universities, assuming a much less intensive use. Control is usually through a proxy server with access through the library card identification number. The most expensive materials will not be licensed on this basis to public libraries, but only for library use only, and normally at a defined number of terminals or for a single simultaneous user at at time .
The only practical route will be a declared arrangement, either donated or paid for, for a limited number os users and a limited amount of material. This is not impossible, especially if the WMF is willing to operate the necessary proxy server and control the access to it. If the foundation proposes to try, I know the people to speak to, and will serve as a contact. But i certainly will do so only openly and in a commercially respectable manner. the only way of doing this inexpensively will be as a donation, and the only way of asking for a donation will be to make our sense of responsibility and our willingness to observe limits absolutely clear.
There is an alternate pathway. WPedians should find out what databases their local public library already subscribes to,and use them. They should then urge their public libraries to subscribe to what they need. The subscription rates for public libraries for limited subsets of JSTOR are not very high, but few public libraries subscribe, as they do not see a demand. Any library would rather spend its money on what its patrons will actually use, and ask for.
On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 1:27 AM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 12:13 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
So what happens when our editors start using their access to copy public domain works hijacked by JSTOR into Wikisource when the contract Wikimedia has with JSTOR forbids that activity? Will Wikimedia tell its contributors that they can't copy these indisputably public domain works into Wikisource?
Would such a restriction really be a major disaster? Limited access to content for which we previously had no access? Sometimes achieving a worthy goal requires a compromise, and in this case it doesn't strike me as an unnacceptable compromise (even granting full credit to your description of the status of things, which I imagine probably has some ambiguity you are leaving out).
Why does it seem that no one in this thread is bothering to even consider attaching to pre-existing university library access? Must we always reinvent the wheel?
That is an interesting possibility - is that achievable? Would interpreting an existing set of agreements between publishers and a university as authorizing that institution to grant access to Wikimedia editors be something that any major university is willing to do?
Something that DGG can perhaps comment on.
Nathan
Hi all,
Speaking as (the other?) professional librarian on the list --
I doubt very much that this would happen, since a) most libraries can barely afford the subscriptions they have to databases and journals; and b) the cost of those subscriptions is almost always based on the number of people served -- usually the number of faculty and students on the campus. Limiting the use of these databases to the campus population is taken very seriously, and usually done by IP access, authenticated through a proxy server by whatever login system the campus uses.
I can't envision a way that we could restrict access to the databases/journals that WMF could hypothetically subscribe to, to any reasonable population, when anyone can sign up for a Wikimedia account.
-- phoebe
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