CRKN’s Knowledge Base Entitlements Sub-Committee (KBESC) is responsible for managing the maintenance and delivery of accurate title lists to Knowledge Bases to facilitate discoverability of serials subscription entitlements by CRKN’s academic member institutions. Beyond discoverability, it has become evident that a method for recording perpetual access rights for these entitlements is equally essential to successfully supporting members in their collections management activities.
As a result, in 2020, the KBESC began a Serials Perpetual Access Tracking project to collect, verify, and share serials entitlements data for perpetual access rights acquired via CRKN licenses. A significant effort was made to create a new framework for recording the entitlements in a consistent, comprehensive, and clear manner with the appropriate metadata. Additionally, the KBESC recognised that the record keeping format should allow users to perform queries and generate reports that would be helpful in making collections management decisions. Finally, it seemed appropriate to adopt a method that could be replicated locally for non-CRKN licensed entitlements and provide resources and guidance on how to do so. To ensure a comprehensive capture of members’ perpetual access rights, the reports cover all CRKN licenses with eleven major publishers, back to the first agreements in 2001.
After an initial evaluation of the scope and requirements of the project, and developing a standard reporting template, the KBESC prepared draft reports for a pilot with several CRKN members, which was well-received. The feedback from this pilot was integrated into the latest iterations of the reports. Member feedback was critical to the development of this project, to ensure it meets members’ needs in perpetual access rights tracking.
The project remains a living record of entitlements. In addition to an annual update which adds any new acquired rights and specifically accounts for ceased, transferred out, newly launched, and acquired titles, it may also be necessary to amend or add titles and entitlements in the reports. While best efforts have been made to accurately investigate and record rights, some of the earlier records may have been incomplete or unclear and the reports should be updated as additional information is available or confirmed with members or publisher records.
SCOPE
To ensure a comprehensive capture of members’ perpetual access rights, the reports cover all CRKN licenses with eleven major publishers, back to the first agreements in 2001. Where applicable, backfile or archive purchases via CRKN licenses are also included.
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Canadian Science Publishing (CSP)
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Elsevier ScienceDirect (ELS)
- Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP)
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
- SAGE (SAGE)
- SpringerNature (SPG)
- Taylor & Francis (TF)
- Wiley (WIL)
SEARCHABLE INTERFACE
Students at the University of Prince Edward Island, as part of a computer science class, have developed an online searchable interface which ingests the data from these reports. It requires local hosting and configuration for each institution and includes a way to systematically update the tool to account for changes to the CRKN reports. It is also possible to add local reports for non-CRKN agreements.
The technical specifications and files for the application are available on GitHub here.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
The following resources are available for members and other interested parties to support the use of these reports and development of further entitlements reports.
Summary
A summary of the project scope and report layout. (Summary)
Guide
A guide on recommended workflows, data collection tips, and using the report template. (Guide)
Recording
A brief introduction and overview of the project and workflow: (Recording)
This recording is of a session presented at ER&L 2022: "It's (perpetually) Complicated: Tracking Perpetual Access Rights from Consortial License Agreements". (March 2022)
Report template for local entitlements
This template includes the same tabs as the CRKN reports by default. For local record-keeping of non-CRKN entitlements, you may wish to retain only the main PA-Rights tab or add additional tabs.
In order to be compatible with CRKN reports and the searchable interface, the main PA-Rights tab must be included in the report, including a publisher name in cell A1 and the specific title-metadata fields. CRKN members must use the same naming convention for their institution as in the CRKN reports. Please see the Guide above for more information.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to the CRKN team and the KBESC with any questions, by contacting licensing@crkn.ca.