Libraries set to save thousands with Jisc pilot
A second wave of a Jisc pilot, which last year saved participating libraries £127,000 on purchasing digital archival collections, has been launched.
EBSCO is the final publisher to join forces with Adam Matthew Digital, Brill, and ProQuest, in this group-purchasing pilot set up by Jisc, the UK’s digital charity for education. The second phase of the pilot provides libraries with reduced cost bundles of over 70 primary source collections across the four publishers for libraries to choose from.
Phase one of the pilot saw 20 higher education institutions purchasing 29 products from across the three publishers. The collective purchasing power of the participating institutions, which leverages higher discounts from publishers, saved the sector just over 25 per cent off the list price. Publishers also worked with new libraries that they hadn’t engaged with before, sharing their arts and humanities digital archival collections at a reduced cost.
The second wave of the pilot will continue to adopt a coordinated and transparent approach to the acquisition of digital archival primary source collections. Resources have been selected to meet the research and teaching needs of the UK HE community – including librarians, faculty, and students. Institutions can easily compare products on offer, and all titles are a one off purchase with no recurrent platform/hosting fee.
Karen Colbron, digital content manager at Jisc, said: 'The second phase of the pilot has come into play following demand from our members. The initial pilot was set up as a response to our members wanting more support for an efficient, coordinated and transparent approach to the acquisition of digital archival collections and to tackle the issue of expensive recurrent platform fees. We’re thrilled that EBSCO have joined Adam Matthew Digital, Brill, and ProQuest to take part in the next stage of the pilot, which we hope will secure even more savings for the sector.'
Eleanor Craig, content delivery and access librarian at the University of Sussex, added: 'Being part of the Jisc group purchasing pilot was a very positive experience. It was good to know that negotiations were being done on our behalf by people we trusted, for resources we were interested in buying.'
