Four subjects have been in focus at the license group’s meetings in 2009:

• Incorporation of the new institutions in DEFF and LUB
• Service declaration for DEFF
• Marketing of electronic resources
• Ensuring contact to the LUB members’ institutions

In 2009 the license group has held three meetings. The meeting in September was arranged in continuation of the DEFF Online Day so that members could attend this day as well.

From 1. January 2009 the gymnasiums, SOSUs and VUCs were included in DEFF and the license group. The new institutions are in many cases characterized by low number of/no hours of professional service so that contact has to be made through principal or an instructor, who are rarely familiar with license terminology, copyright, statistics etc., which hampers communication and endeavours to facilitate equal opportunities for all.

More than 75 gymnasiums, SOSUs and VUCs have registered for the license package, which contains two Danish licenses as well as a number of foreign licenses. The licenses are reached via IP-addresses, password or with ’Skoda’ as platform.

The DEFF secretariat’s first service declaration has – together with the action plan for 2009-11 – taken up quite a lot of space and time at LUB’s meetings in 2009. The action plan is now available on the homepage, and the first version of the service declaration has been approved.

The idea catalogue went on the air on 1. November 2009 with the first 15 contributions, and several more have been added since. Visiting numbers are reasonable, but success depends on current innovation and updating of ideas.

An article on the Wiki has appeared in Uddannelsesbibliotekaren.

LUB’s mailing list is used for all information about activities within the license area, including the many renewals that took place during the autumn 2009. In 2010 we will be discussing how to solve the problems about the necessary contact to our ’hinterland’ so that this can happen in the most efficient way.

The following information about LUB is available on DEFF’s homepage: Mandate, agenda for next meeting, minutes of all meetings, service declaration and action plan.

Planning started in 2009 for DEFF’s consortia day/theme day, but the arrangement itself was postponed until spring 2010 due to a very crowded events calendar in the autumn 2009. A combined LUB/LUF group worked during the second half of 2009 on the practicalities as well as the content in connection with the theme day, which took place on 17. March 2010 in Odense. Programme for the day, as well as powerpoints from the presentations, can be seen on DEFF’s homepage.

LUB has been discussing and supporting this project initiated by the programme group New Institutions. The project has to prepare a model for professional assessment of licenses with a view to creating a better professional decision-making basis for those libraries that are to sign, renew or cancel licenses. The intention is that the professional description will be a supplement to the descriptions already available on DEFF’s homepage.

The license group participates as observer in the programme group Information Supply, participates in the working group on consumer declarations and in the project concerning e-books.

There is considerable uncertainty about the statistical extracts from the various databases and periodical packages, and LUB considers it extremely important that the statistics on DEFF licenses should be prepared centrally so that they can be extracted by the individual institution from DEFF’s homepage. This would also mean safer and more valid figures for the library statistics.

LUB follows the development within this area and has i.a. discussed the libraries’ dilemma concerning the lack of possibilities for interlibrary loans of e.g. foreign e-books. The DEFF license secretariat will incorporate this in the negotiations with the suppliers.

As can be seen, LUB’s discussions cover a broader spectrum than just dealing with license proposals. This is, however, also a central point at LUB meetings, and the result of these negotiations can be seen in the minutes available on DEFF’s homepage.