A c t i o n f o r L i b r a r i e s — J u n e 2 0 0 1

OCLC and netLibrary
Reach Escrow Agreement

OCLC and netLibrary have reached an agreement to place netLibrary's electronic books in escrow. Traditionally, libraries have purchased resources from publishers and library networks that aggregate databases; the libraries owned the copies they purchased. When multiple libraries purchased and retained copies, there was a strong level of assurance that copies would be available in the future through redundancy.

In the electronic environment, resources are often licensed rather than owned, which has created a concern in the library community about long-term access. To address this issue, netLibrary and OCLC have agreed for netLibrary to deposit a copy of each of its e- books, systems software and customer lists with OCLC. In the unlikely event that netLibrary should be unable to continue to supply its services, OCLC would provide each netLibrary customer with a copy of the entire netLibrary library, along with software to load and access the books the customer previously purchased.

BCR has a netLibrary Shared Collection of 4,373 e-books, which libraries can buy into until June 15 when the group purchase will close.

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OCLC and netLibrary Reach Escrow Agreement

OCLC and netLibrary
Reach Escrow Agreement