Benefits of Partnering with NERL
Work With the Most Research Intensive Group of Institutions
The 30 core members of NERL are some of the most research intensive institutions in North America. Additionally, many affiliate NERL libraries are also ARL libraries or select 4 year colleges.
Reach over 140 Libraries
Allow your product to gain traction by reaching over 140 core and affiliate institutions from throughout North America,
Ease of Administration
NERL eases the administrative burden of a vendor by performing all the billing and paying one remittance for the entire order. NERL also oversees the licensing process for all members and affiliates.
NERL’s Negotiating Principles
NERL members negotiate ethically to create more open, equitable, and accessible models of scholarly communications. In that vein NERL has produced a guide for partners that details e-resources negotiating principles.
NERL will actively prioritize partners who are willing to work with us to achieve a more equitable and sustainable academic publishing ecosystem.
NERL seeks agreements that reflect its core values:
- Transparency: NERL commits to transparency of the negotiating process and will share details of discussions, outcomes, and cost wherever possible to demonstrate leadership for academic libraries. We commit to demanding transparency from our vendor partners and will prioritize vendor partners who honor this commitment.
- Sustainability: NERL negotiates for terms that ensure greater sustainability, pursuing opportunities to support collective infrastructure and collective ownership. We prioritize agreements that move past historical pricing models and precedent. We encourage smarter, better, and often smaller deals that do not increase cost with unrequested content while providing clear and transparent pricing models.
- Equity: NERL negotiates for terms that support the rights of all researchers to participate in the scholarly communications ecosystem as knowledge creators. To do so requires partnership between libraries and publishers to eliminate barriers. We work to ensure that costs to researchers and institutions are aligned with the costs of publishing so everyone has access to open access publishing.
- Reproducibility: NERL agreements uphold Author’s Rights, ensuring no forced copyright transfer from author to publisher, computational rights for researchers to use articles in text mining or other practices, and the right to deposit articles in institutional repositories.
- Flexibility: We will encourage and prioritize NERL Agreements that incentivize emerging, efficient, and sustainable business models. We seek meaningful and creative alternatives that support the dissemination and preservation of the scholarly record.
The NERL Model License
NERL was one of the first consortia to develop a Model License for electronic resources. Over the years as scholarship and technology changed, the Model License was updated with new terms and conditions. It continues today as a living document.
Vendors wishing to do business with NERL are urged to consult this document when submitting any proposal.
Accessibility of Content – WCAG 2.0 Compliant
Author’s Rights (for Journals and ebooks)
Branding (Prominent) Ability for Institutions
Course Packs and Electronic Reserves (electronic and print)
Electronic Links to Course Management Systems
Authorized Uses – United States Copyright Act of 1976, as amended (17 U.S.C. §101, et seq.)
Interlibrary Loan rights (Including International ILL)
Post-Cancellation Rights
Removal of Advertisements
Scholarly Sharing
Service Level Agreement
Text and Data Mining
Third-Party Archival System Availability
TRANSFER and COUNTER Compliancy
Working with NERL
NERL’s prime focus is to gain the best terms, conditions and pricing for its members institutions when licensing electronic resources.
Questions about partnering with NERL?
Should you have any questions concerning proposals or working with NERL please contact the NERL Office