ABSTRACT
Model licenses arose out of the circumstances of consortial and individual library licensing of e-resources in the 1990s. Prior to this period, consortia had been focused on resource-sharing activities such as interlibrary loans cooperation and the creation of bibliographic utilities for shared cataloging, for example, OCLC. Reciprocal borrowing privileges and rationalization of collection development were also important features of the collaborative landscape. Bostick and Dugan note that “For academic libraries, consortia are becoming an increasingly important part of the culture, particularly because the cost of library collections has soared.”1 As the rise of the Web dominated the 1990s and transformed the research landscape, publishers made efforts to offer their content in dual formats (print and electronic) and later in unbundled options. The profusion of new resources and knowledge, novel forms of teaching, and radically new expectations for access to research have made consortial participation an essential element of library acquisitions and collection development.
