IEL license negotiations deadlocked – access to the database at risk

The license has been acquired via the FinELib-consortium. The license grants access to the materials included in the database to our university community under the negotiated terms. The current agreement expires at the end of this year.

Negotiations to renew the consortium contract have been ongoing this fall. Unfortunately the publisher (IEEE) made a consortium offer that was unrealistic and overpriced. The offer was unacceptable to the FinELib-consortium. 

The publisher refuses to make a revised offer to the consortium. Instead, the publisher demands that the Aalto University Learning Centre negotiates its own contract for the university. The publisher has stated that if the university refuses to do this the publisher will begin to contact researchers to discuss individual solutions with them.

The direct contract offer the publisher has made to the university contains terms (e.g. permitted uses) that are far less favorable to customers than those in the current consortium agreement.

Aalto University Leaning Centre wishes to provide the best possible service to its customers who need the IEL-database and will, as part of the consortium, make every effort to persuade the publisher back to the negotiating table. The Learning Centre demands that the publisher must offer both reasonable pricing and acceptable contract terms via the FinELib-consortium. It is obvious that together the consortium members are a stronger negotiating partner to the publisher than each university or researcher alone.

If the negotiations do not soon advance, there is a risk of losing access to the resource from the beginning of 2018 until an agreement has been reached.

More about the IEL-situation at the FinELib-website: http://finelib.fi/iel-negotiations-at-a-standstill/

More information also from the Learning Centre at e-resources@aalto.fi.