"Cornell Library Takes a Stand With Journal Vendors: Prices Will Be Made Public"

By Jennifer Howard, The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Librarians have long complained about the nondisclosure agreements, or NDA’s, that some publishers and vendors require them to sign, making it difficult to share information about how much they pay to subscribe to journal databases and other scholarly material. Some state universities’ libraries have been able to reveal licensing terms anyway because their institutions are subject to sunshine laws. Now one major private institution, Cornell University, has publicly declared it’s had enough of confidentiality agreements, too.
“To promote openness and fairness among libraries licensing scholarly resources, Cornell University Library will not enter into vendor contracts that require nondisclosure of pricing information or other information that does not constitute a trade secret,” the library said in a statement posted on its Web site. “The more that libraries are able to communicate with one another about vendor offers, the better they are able to weigh the costs and benefits of any individual offer. An open market will result in better licensing terms.”

Cornell University Library Statement
Full Text of New Policy
Read the Complete COHE Article

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Libraries