Perpetual rights and entitlement functionality in Alma DRAFT

See Best Practices for Decision Pages and Tags for groups

Legend: not started IN PROGRESS STALLED decided

Status	IN PROGRESS
Description	Perpetual rights and entitlement tracking in Alma (SILS Phase 4 Deliverable)
Decision summary	Record keeping practices will be determined locally.
Owning group	ERES + @Michelle Polchow
Approver
Consulted	Local campus and CDL survey.
Informed	Decision process evolved into a survey of the status quo at campuses and CDL, as well as a professional learning opportunity for ERES members to gain knowledge and offers the potential that at some point in the future, members can advocate for more robust record keeping as time and resources permit.
Decision-making process
Priority	High
Target decision date	June 27, 2024
Date decided	Jun 12, 2025

Recommendation

The SILS ERES Operations Subteam spent substantial time during the 2023-2024 cycle to develop shared knowledge, familiarity with Alma software functionality, and professional expertise in the area of electronic resources record keeping for perpetual access. The group’s conclusion is at this point, both as a consortia and individual campuses, that this is an aspirational goal to revisit in the future.

Impact

Stakeholder group	Impact

Stakeholder group

Impact

Local campuses

Post-cancellation record keeping informs collection development decisions, such as consideration of alternative budget scenarios comparing costs of direct subscription versus inter-library loan. The records document accreditation compliance in support of the long-term preservation of the scholarly record. When vendors agree to license terms requesting that they deposit materials with third-party preservation entities, the terms and titles can be compared to the actual deposits which are tracked by the ISSN International Centre Keepers Registry. This data is critical in order to make informed decisions, monitor vendor compliance, and leverage impactful contracts during a renegotiation process.

CDL

CDL purchases and manages UC systemwide electronic resources by leveraging the collective negotiating power of the UC campuses. Electronic journals represents significant and permanent assets for the University and therefore are an integral term of agreement which CDL advocates for inclusion with every vendor. Transfer, PCA, and perpetual access rights data are critical in order to make informed decisions, monitor vendor compliance, and leverage impactful contracts during a renegotiation process.

Background

Perpetual access, is a mutual obligation libraries and publishers have to ensure long-term preservation of the scholarly record. Agreements between the parties are good places to document these mutual obligations. These might be subscription agreements, open access publishing agreements, or agreements that blend the two.

Recent research indicates that in many existing agreements, terms are vague, unclear regarding the precise content and time depth preserved, unnecessarily restrictive in terms of access and/or use, conflated post-cancellation access and long-term digital preservation and access, and were sometimes administratively burdensome to implement. It was also difficult to verify compliance with the agreements, and to determine if the content was actually preserved properly. In 2023, LibLicense Model license recommended improved language and guidance for working this into new agreements.

Slides and case studies were shared for educational purposes and to facilitate discussion. PowerPoint presentations can be found in the folder in SILS Google Drive labeled Perpetual Rights Tracking). Discussion and background can be found in minutes at the following meetings:
- February 15, 2024;
- April 11, 2024;
- April 25, 2024

Campus Tracking data points for Perpetual Access - survey of local activity. (March 2024). The survey indicated that there are limited human resources available for undertaking such a complex project, both at CDL and for local campuses.

The group completed a survey regarding campus activities supporting perpetual access -https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1vRHDD4OSeFD1Am2n8af1fezBhL47dPht Campuses expressed a common barrier to executing this type of work stems from insufficient staffing available to make this a higher technical services priority.

CDL data available to support campuses perpetual rights tracking for Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 acquisitions.
- Redacted licenses: Redacted License Agreements
- Transferred titles: Transferred Journals Titles
- Title list: Publisher Package Details: Title Lists (at time of renewal)

Dependencies

Questions to consider*

Issue

Issue
Title transfer	Best Practices: Title Platform Transfers (DRAFT)
Title changes
CDL Tier 2 changes
Tier 3 perpetual/post Cx access to CDL managed content	Best Practices: Recording Perpetual Access in Alma (DRAFT)
CZ bib record reliability on title changes
Perpetual access vs post-cancellation access
IZ/NZ duplication of portfolios in Primo and coverage display	Best Practice for activating a CZ portfolio in both NZ and IZ
Cross referencing print holdings (local and RLF)
Licensing information cross references

*SILS E-Res has used this to create other best practice pages, but will not return to update the chart or use it to ass additional work plans.

Action Log

Action/Point Person	Expected Completion Date	Notes	Status

Action/Point Person	Expected Completion Date	Notes	Status
Tamara Pilko	March 2024	Create survey to record campus efforts	Completed
Michelle Polchow	July 2024	Complete SILS ERES decision