Early User Response

The early response to Renaissance Women Online and to Women Writers Online has been very positive (see Appendix A for reviews and quotes). Since the population of consumers is divided in most cases between purchasers (the acquisition librarians and consortia who make the actual purchase decision) and the end user (faculty, researchers, and students who read the texts), it may be useful to distinguish between their responses.

Purchaser response

The response of purchasers has in the first 5 months of publication been very encouraging. As of February 1, 2000, 70 licenses have already been purchased (see our subscriber list for details), with 91 more currently in negotiation or in a trial period prior to subscribing. Over half of the purchases (39) have been multi-year licenses, indicating a confidence in the future of the collection as well as a desire to take advantage of our discounts. We also have 66 individual subscribers (of which 15 are paid and 51 are provided gratis to RWO contributors). In our negotiations with purchasers, we have also had the opportunity to hear more specific responses to the RWO/WWP collection. Some points are worth noting in detail.

Pricing model: Our pricing model has met with general approval both for its low cost and for the fairness of its structure. It provides six levels of pricing, based on undergraduate FTE (see above, with the top level set at $1500 per year, and the lowest level at $100 per year. In addition, we have offered an aggressive discount program, which provides a 30% discount for three-year licenses and a 50% discount for five-year licenses. This pricing system has had the effect of bringing the RWO/WWO resource within the reach not only of the poorest colleges and universities, but also potentially of public libraries and secondary schools. This affordability has been attested both by the feedback we have received at conferences and in the actual range of institutions which have purchased licenses.

Access terms: Our access terms have similarly been met with approval on several counts (see our license page for a copy of our license). Purchasers have been glad to find no arbitrary restrictions on use of the texts in the collection; we allow unlimited browsing, searching, printing and downloading of texts within the licensing institution, which means that faculty and students are free to experiment with the texts and with ways of using them. We also place minimal restrictions on who may use the collection at a licensing institution: we allow for walk-in use at libraries and public clusters, proxy server access from remote sites, and use by visiting faculty and other temporarily affiliated persons. From the purchaser's viewpoint these provisions also mean a diminished burden of security and a more trusting, collegial relationship between the licensing institution and the resource provider, a relationship which is in general seen as an adversarial one at best.

License modifications: In some cases, purchasing institutions have requested modifications to the license agreement, and these are of interest for what they tell us about how online resources are seen by institutions and in particular by their legal departments. In almost all cases, the proposed revisions revolve around issues of potential litigation: indemnification, the venue of any such litigation, limitation of liability, warranty, and the conditions of termination and payment. These requests reflect the increasing oversight of university legal departments over contracts for online subscriptions, and an increased sense of potential legal risks incurred by such contracts.

User response

User feedback has been slower in coming, since we have not had the same direct contact with faculty that we have had with purchasers. However, we have received email comments, comments in papers delivered at conferences, and oral feedback at conferences, from both our beta-test group and from a range of users (tenured and untenured faculty, graduate students). For details please see Appendix A. In particular, the system has been praised for its powerful search interface, which is generally regarded as going far beyond what is available with other digital collections. The general user interface is seen as intuitive and elegant (again compared with other products). Faculty report that undergraduates have found the contextual materials helpful and pitched at an appropriate level of sophistication. The collection itself receives considerable praise, as always, for its breadth and its contribution to teaching and research.

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