June 5, 2014
Tim Collins, President, EBSCO Information Services
Matti Shem-Tov, President and CEO, Ex Libris Group
Dear Tim and Matti,
On behalf of the Board of the Orbis Cascade Alliance I am writing to express our appreciation
for the efforts EBSCO and Ex Libris have made over the past few months and particularly for the
new Policy on Metadata Sharing announced by EBSCO on April 18, 2014. While this is a
tangible step in the right direction it is far short of our stated goal: to make EBSCO content
seamlessly and fully available via Ex Libris discovery services. We continue to hold that libraries
must be able to make independent decisions about content and discovery. All of the content
our members purchase must be fully available via our chosen discovery system.
While we celebrate your progress, the lack of a fully-formed solution on the part of EBSCO and
Ex Libris is detrimental to our mission and the failure to reach a complete agreement is doing
immediate harm to our customers, long-term damage to your reputation, and ultimately
undermining the greater research and education mission of our organizations. Looking forward
we expect:
Immediate and vigorous implementation
Implementation of the sharing described by EBSCO’s new policy should proceed immediately
and be treated as a high priority. Both companies must work to implement a signed
agreement and proceed to implementation in the shortest possible time. Webinars, news
releases, and presentations are meaningless until students, faculty, and researchers
experience a change for the better.
 We expect patrons to benefit from this improvement in service by the beginning of fall term
in September 2014.
Roadmap for full sharing
EBSCO and Ex Libris must engage immediately and continue to work toward the full inclusion
of all EBSCO content in Ex Libris Primo.
 We expect to receive a firm schedule for moving to complete resolution of this issue.
Please provide feedback on these two expectations.
2288 Oakmont Way Eugene Oregon 97401-5519
[email protected] 
 541.246.2470  fax 541.246.2477
www.orbiscascade.org
In short, we appreciate this progress but continue to be concerned about your failure to make
EBSCO academic library content seamlessly and fully available via Ex Libris discovery services.
This latest development is a step in the right direction but it is not enough.
Sincerely,
Orbis Cascade Alliance Board of Directors
Chris Shaffer, Chair
Jane Carlin
Jay Starratt
Michelle Bagley
Scot Harrison
Susan Barnes Whyte
Natalie Beach
Lynn Baird
Merrill Johnson
John F. Helmer, Exec. Dir.
cc:
Oregon Health & Science University
University of Puget Sound
Washington State University
Clark College
Saint Martin's University
Linfield College
Chemeketa Community College
University of Idaho
George Fox University
Orbis Cascade Alliance Council
Mark Triest, President, Ex Libris North America
Kevin Leffew, Vice President of Sales, US and Canada, EBSCO Publishing