The ASERL Eleven: Recommended Principles and Terms for Electronic Resource Agreements
A practical guide to principled licensing language
Are libraries’ values reflected in the licenses we sign with our content vendors?
The agreements libraries make document the practical terms of agreements with publishers and vendors, but these contracts can also be where we document efforts to enshrine our values. To assist ASERL libraries and others in securing better licensing terms for content and services, ASERL librarians drafted eleven key principles and suggested licensing language–the ASERL Eleven.
This booklet and accompanying Google Drive document (opens in new window), published under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial License, allows users to easily copy/paste the suggested license language as part of negotiations with service providers.
“Our members invest huge amounts of time and resources into library content and service licensing,” said Tim Pyatt, Dean of Libraries at Wake Forest University. “Having ‘The ASERL Eleven’ gives ASERL librarians clear principles to guide their work and helps to forge consensus on key issues in our relationships with publishers and other vendors.”
The ASERL Eleven in Action: Librarian Reviews of Vendor AgreementsFollowing the enthusiastic response to the ASERL Eleven licensing principles published in Spring of 2022, a working group of ASERL librarians developed a process for assessing content licenses to see if the ASERL Eleven principles are reflected in licenses submitted for our contract negotiations. In collaboration with willing vendors, the reviews team compared standard license agreements against the ASERL Eleven principles to see where vendors have embraced library ideals and to recommend language that might bring licenses closer to conforming. Our aim is to evaluate whether our principles are currently in practice, and to illuminate areas where libraries and publishers can simplify license negotiations by referring to communally acceptable language that reinforces our shared values. License Reviews
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About the Review Process
Each license is reviewed by a team of at least three librarians from different ASERL member libraries. Company and product names, addresses, and identifying brands and marks are redacted before the reviewers receive a copy of the agreement to promote an unbiased evaluation. The librarians each review the redacted license individually against the ASERL Eleven principles, then meet collectively to reach a consensus assessment and recommendations. That consensus report is supplied to the vendor for review and comment, and posted to this web page for public use.
Additional Resources
Library Accessibility Alliance