6 April 2020
What publishers are doing to assist institutions
Jisc issued a Statement on access content in response to COVID-19 on 20 March 2020. The statement has been endorsed by ALPSP.
Jisc has subsequently asked publishers to detail the measures they are taking to support UK institutions through an online survey. Publisher responses and information sourced from other resource lists have been combined to create a resources registry. The list will be updated daily and includes details on remote access, simultaneous use, trial periods, grace access, discoverability, timescales and exit strategies.
Limitations on remote use for software and business and law resources
The Chest team has worked with providers such as Adobe to ensure that students and staff can access software at home and to extend free trial periods. Visit the Chest website for more details. With the Business Librarians Association and BIALL, Jisc are asking suppliers of business and law resources to support remote use during this period.
Lessening the burden for libraries in providing remote access
Working with SCONUL and the community, Jisc has developed a targeted set of recommendations and requirements for publishers, content providers and system vendors to reduce the burden of managing these arrangements and to maximise user discovery.
Bridging the print gap
As libraries including the British Library can no longer access their print collections they can no longer supply hard copy texts or scan their physical collections. Jisc, SCONUL, RLUK, the British Library and the UUK CNAC group discussed this issue with the CLA. The CLA is currently consulting with rightsholders on whether they can adjust the limits in the CLA licence and permit searching and use of scanned content in the CLA Digital Content Store.
Jisc is contacting textbook publishers and aggregators to discuss how they can put in place solutions that will remove restrictions on use and ideally remove triggers for acquisition. Jisc have partnered with Kortext to deliver access to key learning resources for university students and staff. Further details on this and other providers will be made available on Licence subscriptions manager and the library services blog.
Key medical texts to support clinicians
Jisc is working with clinical content providers and medical textbook publishers to ensure content to provide support to clinicians who are being asked to up skill on intensive care medicine is made openly available. Elsevier has made key content openly available on Clinical Key as part of their Covid-19 toolkit and all publishers are encouraged to make critical textbook content available via a number of channels.
Kortext, VitalSource and BibliU are identifying medical textbook content available on their sites and when available we will provide a link to relevant content on those platforms on Licence subscriptions manager.
Payment terms
The joint statement highlighted the issue with finance and processing payments. All publishers have been asked to extend their payment terms. Publishers have been asked to signal their acceptance of extended terms via the survey. Responses will be listed in the resources registry.