Harvard University Libraries
Electronic Books Task Force
Text of Vendor Questions
1. Vendor issues
Short term/long term prospects
1.1 Briefly review your business history for us and give us a sense of your business plan for
the next 3-5 years and beyond..
Associations/Partners/funding sources
1.2 Who are your venture partners and what are your current and prospective sources of
funding, in detail?
Subscribers
1.3 Please name subscribers who are members of Harvard’s peer group of libraries
2. Business model
Packaging – purchase or lease, or both
2.1 What are your options for acquisition: Subscription? Lease? Sale? What options do you
offer for acquiring individual titles or complete collections? Are there single-user vs.
multiple- or unlimited-user options?
Cost model
2.2 What are the features of your purchase/lease plan(s)?
Distribution of rights – Agreements with rights holders
2.3 What is the nature of your agreement with content owners as to the distribution of rights?
We are interested in both the economic arrangements (e.g. how royalties are distributed)
and the duration and termination conditions of these agreements (i.e. when and under what
conditions may rights be revoked?). We would also like information about component
items for which rights may be lacking or incomplete (e.g. artwork and photographs).
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Licensing to the Library – fair use, non-Harvard users, ILL
2.4 What rights or restrictions thereon do you assign to library subscribers and to end users?
To what extent do these extend to classic rights of fair use? What are the restrictions on
access by non-Harvard users, in particular for walk-ins and for interlibrary loan? Can
materials be placed on course reserve (including print reserves)? Can they be used in
printed course packs? Are there restrictions on printing and downloading for these
purposes?
Contractual duration
2.5 What terms or limits of time are in place under contract?
Access to files upon withdrawal from contract
2.6 What happens to access rights when/if contract is terminated?
2.6.1 If perpetual rights are available, do (or will) you maintain and/or provide to customers
unencrypted files for long-term archival purposes (e.g. for use when copyright has
expired)?
Archiving arrangements
2.7 What are your arrangements for securing files and providing access to them in perpetuity?
2.7.1 What are your arrangements for escrow and/or transfer of files in case of business failure?
Acquisitions model – ability to sustain Harvard’s distributed acquisitions and accounting
patterns
2.8 How is ordering done, initially and subsequent to first buy? Harvard libraries order by
unit; can you respond to different order originations in a single institutional subscriber?
Accounting model
2.9 How is invoicing done? Harvard libraries make payments by unit; can you service
multiple payment centers in a single institutional subscriber?
User authentication model – limits available by library or user group (e.g. for reserves)
2.10 What is your user authentication model? Can subscribing libraries limit user access by
library or by user group?
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Restrictions on use – circulation model, simultaneous use, timing out, simultaneous use of
multiple titles
2.11 How are end-user sessions managed? Are there restrictions on simultaneous users?
Restrictions on simultaneous access to multiple titles by a single user? Does the system
time out title access or otherwise limit end user sessions? Are materials assigned
circulation periods?
2.12 Are individual user accounts provided? What additional functionality do personal
accounts offer?
3. Content
Intellectual basis for building collection
3.1 What is the principle of collection development and selection of titles?
Likelihood of titles being withdrawn – continuing access
3.2 What rules govern the removal of titles from the collection?
Publisher partners
3.3 What publishers do you include and what is your strategy for increasing the publisher
base? We are particularly interested in your involvement with university presses.
Schedule for upgrading, additions to, deletions from collection(s)
3.4 By what arrangement and with what frequency are titles added to/deleted from database?
Selection policy – back list, front list
3.5 What is the nature of publisher arrangements concerning currency of titles? Mostly back
list? Mostly front list? Moving wall based on date of publication?
Number of titles
3.6 What is the current title count and projected annual growth rate?
Subject content? Discipline content?
3.7 How you would you characterize content by subject? By discipline? Do you expect to see
changes in the direction of the subjects you collect?
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Treatment of content – image blocking? Exact match to print original? Retain images, audio,
of electronic original
3.8 Are original contents and format preserved in electronic versions? Images? Graphics?
Pagination? Is the same the case for originals in electronic format?
Accept suggestions from user for title, publisher additions
3.9 Is there a mechanism for subscriber suggestions for addition of titles? Of publishers?
What is your success in fulfilling such requests?
User group maintained?
3.10 Is there a subscriber user group?
Level of staff expertise
3.11 What is the level of staff expertise in selection of titles; user interface design? How are
responsibilities distributed among different departments or sections of the organization?
What is the staffing level for each role?
Production Process and Related Issues
3.12 Please describe the production process for adding an e-book to the service. Does this vary
by publisher?
3.13 How long does it generally take to make a new e-book available?
3.14 Are new editions of works automatically made available if the previous edition was
included (e.g. updated editions of technical or reference books)? How soon do such
editions appear online in relation to their availability in print?
4. Metadata management
Access both title-by-title and at collection level?
4.1 Is access provided at both collection and title level? Are titles available via persistent
URLs? If collection-level access is provided, are non-licensed titles presented as well as
titles we've selected? How are non-licensed titles signified as such to the end user?
Provision of MARC records
4.2 Are MARC records provided? Will you supply a large random sample for examination
and analysis?
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Method of delivery of records
4.3 What is the method of delivery of records? What is the source of the records and/or what
cataloging standard is used? Are records customizable by subscriber?
5. Interface
Indexing
5.1 What indexing is available on the site?
Screen display
5.2 What are the features of screen display?
Navigability of site
5.3 What navigation features are provided?
Database functionality
5.4 What are the underlying features of database functionality?
Searching
5.5 What searching capability is provided, on the site and from within a selected title?
Printing
5.6 What printing functions are available?
Editing and/or mark-up functions
5.7 What capabilities are there for editing or mark-up of titles by end users? How long is the
mark-up retained in a user’s account?
Saving and storing
5.8 What is allowed/restricted in saving and storing text?
Limits on downloading
5.9 Are there limits on downloading?
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User support and documentation – help, error messages, troubleshooting instructions
5.10 What is provided as to online help, documentation, and troubleshooting options? What is
the nature of error messages and other dialog with users?
6. Administrative issues
User statistics
6.1 What is the provision for user statistics?
Reporting tools
6.2 Describe the nature and currency of reports on Harvard’s use of the product. How are
reports accessed or obtained?
Safeguards on privacy
6.3 What protection of user privacy is in place?
7. Technical issues
Proprietary (or separate) software or hardware required
7.1 What proprietary or pre-loaded software is required for varying levels of access to the site
and to individual titles? Is there a hardware option, or requirement? Are these essential to
use, or enhancements? How difficult are they to acquire/install/uninstall? What rights
govern continued access to software if the relationship is terminated?
Off-line access to and use of content
7.2 What options are available for offline use of content?
Open URL compliance
7.3 Do document links comply with Open URL standards? (i.e. can they be accessed via an
open URL link server such as SFX?)
Hardware and software issues
7.4 What technical formats are used for e-book content? What is the production process?
7.5 What are your provisions for format migration over time?
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7.6 Please describe your online server environment. Do you have redundant servers and
network lines in one or more locations? What happens if a primary server or other
component goes down?
7.7 What is your average up-time for the last twelve months? Have you experienced any
episodes of extended downtime?
December 2002, Rev. May 2003