JISC Collections
In 2006, JISC established the JISC Content Procurement Company Ltd (trading as JISC Collections) a company limited by guarantee that mutually trades with its members – all UK higher and further education institutions and research councils that receive direct funding from the UK education funding bodies. JISC Collections is the national centre of excellence for procurement and licensing of digital content to support education and research. Its mission is to negotiate affordable agreements for relevant digital content under licensing terms that maximise adoption and use.
What do we do?
JISC Collections case study JISC Collections is funded by the JISC to procure digital content and to negotiate with publishers of digital content on behalf of the UK higher and further education communities and the research councils.
JISC Collections provides value to the academic community by negotiating the best pricing and terms of use possible for digital content. Through this central shared service JISC Collections aims to save academic libraries time and money, avoid unnecessary duplication of effort and to leverage buying power across the academic community.
In April 2009, JISC Collections estimated that its activities saved the academic community approximately £43 million per annum.
What digital content is available?
JISC Collections has negotiated agreements for a wide range of digital content including electronic journals, maps, newspapers, images, film, e-books and databases…
The JISC Collections UK National Academic Archive includes over 20 digital archives purchased by JISC and licensed by JISC Collections. The content of these archives has been bought by JISC in perpetuity in recognition of their quality and value to support education and research in a wide range of subjects. The majority of the archives are completely free to access.
As an example, you can access all the House of Commons parliamentary papers from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century, the scientific archives of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Institution of Physics and books from the 1400’s to the 1900 in Early English Books Online and Eighteenth Century Collections Online.
JISC Collections manages NESLi2 which is the UK’s initiative for initiative for the licensing of online journals on behalf of the higher and further education and research communities. The negotiations undertaken through NESLi2 provide institutions with the best possible pricing and terms and conditions of use for online journal agreements.Efficiency gains through NESLi2 amounted to £7.7m in 2007/8. Agreements are negotiated with a range of publishers such as Elsevier, Wiley and OUP and Nature.
In addition to the digital archives and journals, JISC Collections has a large Catalogue of Online Resources that are available under a standard subscription model. These include image collections such as the Getty images in Education Image Gallery, E-book agreement such as Oxford Scholarship Online and Taylor & Francis, abstract and indexing databases such as ISI and Scopus and database agreements such as Grove Art and Music and map collections such as the Ordnance Survey maps available through Digimap. There are over 120 digital content agreements available with specially discounted pricing and terms and conditions of use that allow students, teachers and researcher to use the content to suit their needs.