Consortial Licensing Principles

Licensing Principles

eHLbc’s licensing process is guided by the following principles:

1. Relationships between consortia, publishers, and vendors are partnerships. By nurturing strong, non-adversarial, lasting relationships, consortia are able to realize benefits for members, publishers, and vendors alike.

2. While there is tremendous value in the power of consortia to leverage larger numbers to garner better prices, each consortium member is autonomous and makes its own decision regarding its ultimate participation in consortial licenses and services.

3. Consortium members must always realize a benefit from working with a consortium to license a resource. Consortium pricing should always be more advantageous than pricing offered to individual organizations.

4. Consortia provide publishers and vendors with an efficient method for negotiating licenses through one office, for billing via one invoice, and for disseminating information on licensed products through one consortial communication infrastructure.

5. Working through consortia, publishers and vendors streamline implementation and troubleshooting.

6. The consortium does not benefit economically from any discounts proffered by publishers and vendors. All savings are passed on directly to members.

7. While being sensitive to publishers' and vendors' needs for discretion, consortia value open and transparent operations. Final pricing for products licensed through the consortium will be shared with all consortium members.

8. Recognizing that each organization, sector, and consortium is different, consortia maintain there is value in creating a consistent pricing and discount approach for resources under consideration for licensing.