The Consortium is essentially open to all interested institutions from the fields of education and research as well as from the public sector. Contact the office (Susanne Aerni, Tel. +41 44 510 16 90) if you would like to be involved in one of the existing Consortium contracts.
What does participating in the Consortium offer?
Compared to individual licensing, where the service-provider’s set catalogue price has to be paid, as a Consortium member or customer receives an average discount of around thirty per cent. We support the participating institutions in activating e-resources and offer help with any queries. Moreover, members of staff from the participating libraries can attend free courses and information events. You can find more information about our services here.
What does participating in the Consortium not offer?
Apart from a handful of exceptions (Science, Nature), we do not negotiate any licences for individual journal titles, but rather exclusively journal packages, i.e. collections of several journal titles. We only negotiate eBooks in connection with an existing database or journal licence.
How is the participation fee calculated?
The participating institutions have paid for the Head Office’s upkeep (salaries, infrastructure) since 2006. The institutions pay a fee per licence, which is set every year based on the budget calculated and the number of all licences brokered. Despite this charge, licensing via the Consortium still works out cheaper than an individual contract thanks to the discounts negotiated.
How are licence fees calculated?
The prices of licences to use e-resources differ greatly. They are often geared towards the size of the licensing institution, i.e. the number of potential users. In order to ascertain this, the number of scientists and students at the institution (FTE = full time equivalents) to which the library belongs is determined. If you are interested in one or several products in our range, please let us know your institution’s FTE so we can give you a swift provisional quote.