Updating the license for a published item (arrr!)

[Paul Hoffman]

Our folks are struggling a bit with repository licenses -- and so am I.
The situation is perhaps best explained by way of a little story...

Bob Roberts, the librarian tasked with building the IR+ repository for
Pirates College, created a provisional repository license based on the
UR license -- actually, he just copied the UR license and made a few
minor edits. Call this "License X". Or, if you will, call it "License
stolen from University of Rochester".

Bob created a few collections and published a bunch of items to them.

Bob created a new version of the provisional repository license, with the
wording tweaked and the name changed. Call this "License Y".

Bob now wants to unveil the repository to the world -- including,
notably, to the college's accreditors.

The problem is that now when people -- i.e., the accreditors -- look at
items published in step 2, they see License X instead of License Y. And
License X actually *is* called "License stolen from University of
Rochester". This makes Bob feel... well, dreadful!

Bob now wonders how to (easily) make it so that they see License Y --
and, when the college's lawywers have finished crafting a *real*
license, how make them see *it* without him having to resubmit -- or
submit a new version of -- everything already published?

In the short term, I can just do this for Bob:

UPDATE ir_repository.license
SET description = 'License'
WHERE description = 'License stolen from University of Rochester';

But what about the long term?

Thanks in advance,

Paul.

--
Paul Hoffman <pa...@flo.org>
Systems Librarian
Fenway Libraries Online
c/o Wentworth Institute of Technology
550 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
(617) 445-2914
(617) 442-2384 (FLO main number)

[Nate Sarr]

Hi Paul,

 

  IR+ wasn't really designed to deal with this type of problem.  I can tell you how to update the data but you will need to talk to an attorney to see if they are legal options. 

 

 

1.  You could alter the text of the license just like you did for the title in the database after you get the new text.  This would be going behind the software and doing what it prevents you from doing which is changing the license on existing items.  The problem here is this wouldn't be what the user agreed to when they submitted the item and users submitting into the repository would have a new license attached that they did not agree to.

 

2.  You could do #2 then immedately obsolete the license and add a new one with the same text.  This will force users (existing and new) to agree to the new license when they try to submit  an item after the new license has been created and set as the new repository license so everything going forward should be ok.  Again the problem here is older items would have an updated license that users possibly do not agree to.

 

3.  You could obsolete the current license once you get the new text and then create a new license and make it the default and then create an update script to only update those items for users who have agreeded that the license can be changed to the newer version of the license.

 

Let me know if this helps.

 

-Nate

 

 

 

 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "irplus" group.
To post to this group, send email to irp...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to irplus+un...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/irplus?hl=en.