JISC

International partnership will deliver savings as well as new business models to European education and research communities.

A partnership of four national ICT bodies today announced the names of the publishers that will take part in a project which for the first time will see online resources licensed for use across national borders.

The Knowledge Exchange - made up of bodies from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK – announced that the next stage of the project, launched in February last year, will be the offering of a range of resources to education and research communities in the four countries provided by the following publishers: Multi-Science, ALPSP, BioOne, ScientificWorldJournal, and Wiley-Blackwell. 
  
The resources offered through the project were selected by a joint tender process run by the Knowledge Exchange through the EU competitive tender process. With 22 publishers submitting initial bids, the five selected have been chosen through consideration of quality, national procurement strategies, innovation and value for money.

The aim of the Knowledge Exchange project was to allow partner organisations – Denmark’s Electronic Research Library DEFF, German research body DFG, SURFfoundation and JISC – to leverage greater economies of scale in the licensing of online content on behalf of their communities and to develop new and innovative business models.
 
But perhaps the most innovative aspect of the project, say Knowledge Exchange representatives, is the potential for savings as discounts on pricing are based on levels of take up from each partner country. Discounts are negotiated with publishers so that the greater the number of subscribers across the partner countries, the greater the savings.
 
"This agreement represents a milestone in the provision of online resources for education and research and demonstrates the immense potential of international collaboration" Lorraine Estelle, CEO of JISC Collections, said: "This agreement represents a milestone in the provision of online resources for education and research and demonstrates the immense potential of international collaboration across a range of areas. We’re delighted to be working so closely and so effectively with our European partners and in an initiative which will, we hope, bring real benefits to institutions in our four countries."
 
Professor Wim Liebrand, CEO of the SURFfoundation, said: "Publishers and national organisations working together to accommodate for new demands in research is a big step forward towards seamless access to scholarly information. These five publishers will be remembered to be the first to eliminate historic barriers. I expect others to join in and help build a future where publicly funded research outcomes will be available to all."

Dr Anne Lipp, Head of the Division Scientific Library Services and Information Systems at the German Research Foundation (DFG), said: "These agreements represent a further landmark for the National Licensing Initiative begun by the DFG over 4 years ago. The multinational partnership we have engaged in here has brought a new level of proficiency and transparency to the process of licence procurement, including the strong sense of partnership between our organisations, the libraries and the publishers involved."

Bo Öhrström, Deputy Director of the Danish Agency for Libraries and Media hosting DEFF, said: “Publishers are still playing an important role and different and innovative business models will form the framework for the access to electronic resources in the future. During this project between four national ICT bodies the first steps have been taken towards these new and innovative models. Furthermore the cooperation between the four partners will bring immediate benefits to all the parties involved – publishers, libraries, researchers and students.”