More journals in the SHEDL

Berg, Edinburgh University Press, and Oxford Univeristy Press have all finalised negotiations with SHEDL (Scottish Higher Education Digital Library). This will give the University access to many of the journals produced by these publishers at a very small additional cost, and in the case of Berg no cost at all, as we currently do not subscribe to any their titles.

 

A further deal has been signed with Portico, which is a digital preservation service for electronic journals and electronic books. Access to material which Portico holds only becomes accessible when a trigger event occurs such as a publisher going out of business. This provides us with access to a secure electronic archive should the worst occur and the electronic version of a journal becomes unavailable.  

 

We now have access to the journals, and details of each one has been added to the library catalogue. The most recent issue of each journal is available, as well as several years of previous issues, although this does depend on the individual title.

 

SHEDL is a purchasing consortium made up of all Scottish Higher Education Institutions. By negotiating as a single group, SHEDL has been able to secure agreements with 6 academic publishers as well as Portico. The scheme benefits publishers by reducing their administrative costs and SHEDL members benefit through increased access to valuable resources. Similar schemes to SHEDL have already been in place in Scandinavia and Ireland for some time. It is hoped that as more publishers are included it will have significant benefits to those working in research pools as all institutions will have access to the same resources.

 

 

 

Alasdair Stewart

Senior Subject Librarian