Announcement

FSeL cluster demonstrates the value of collective negotiations with innovative two-year licence agreement

Ottawa, ON, April 29, 2010 — The partners of the Federal Science eLibrary (FSeL) have negotiated a two-year licence agreement that proves the feasibility and value of collective negotiations with scientific, technical and medical (STM) publishers.

One of the aims of the FSeL partners is to establish a collaborative, government-wide process for negotiating access rights to STM electronic journals.

To support this effort, the FSeL partners initiated a proof of concept project to demonstrate that they could collectively negotiate with publishers for seamless and equitable access to STM e-journals. The ADMs of the six FSeL departments signed a two-year Memorandum of Understanding as part of the initiative.

The result of this project is an innovative licence agreement with scientific publisher Springer that:

• Expands access to essential STM research for significantly less money
  • All 8,400 researchers, policy analysts and decision makers in the departments of the six FSeL partners now have unlimited access, no matter whether they are working in an office or in the field, to the Springer e-journal collection of 1600+ titles.
  • This means that departments that previously had access to fewer than 100 e-journals now have access to more than 1,600, thereby eliminating existing inequalities in access between the partners.
  • Through this collective negotiation, the partners realized significant savings.
  • In addition, there were significant reductions in the annual rate of inflation.

• Leverages existing library negotiation expertise with the S&T publishing sector
  The collaborative approach of this agreement recognizes the uniqueness of the S&T publishing sector and draws on the expertise of librarians who can use their knowledge of scientific publishing pricing structures and business drivers to achieve the best possible outcome. This agreement also aligns well with the government's focus on integrating S&T efforts across departments.

This agreement is an important step forward in making the FSeL a reality. It demonstrates the power of collective negotiation by federal libraries and will serve as a test case for broader implementation for other science-based departments and agencies (SBDAs). The vision for the FSeL remains the same: to ensure seamless and equitable desktop access to STM e-journal for all federal employees.

For more information about the FSeL and the proof of concept project, please contact:

• Danielle Jacques
  Chair, Strategic Alliance of Federal Science and Technology Libraries
  Director, Canadian Agriculture LibraryAgriculture and Agri-Food Canada
  Ottawa, Ontario  K1A 0C5
  Phone: 613-773-1448
  E-mail: danielle.jacques@agr.gc.ca
  
  or
  
  
• Lucie Molgat
  Project Leader, Federal Science eLibrary
  NRC-Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information
  M-55, 1200 Montreal Road
  Ottawa, Ontario  K1A 0S2
  Phone: 613-991-2462
  E-mail: lucie.molgat@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca