Vast Active Library and Information Science blog. From a recent library science graduate in Wellington, New Zealand. A focus on reference and current awareness tools and issues, especially free, web-based resources.

 
New Zealand national electronic resources consortium.

These last few days I've been very excited about the PER:NA project, sponsored by the National Library of New Zealand. PER:NA stands for Purchasing Electronic Resources: a National Approach. What the National Library has done is negotiate a consortium deal that covers every library in New Zealand. All sizes. All sectors. School, public, academic, special. Everybody is included.

The idea is that as many libraries as possible sign up for the consortium, which gives us access to some quality general information sources, supplied by Ebsco and Gale. We get access to full-text and bibliographic databases containing business, health, news, and general reference sources, both serials and monographs.

A quick flick-through shows me I could save quite a significant sum by signing up, and gain access to titles I wouldn't have a chance of purchasing any other way. And my customers (colleagues, staff, whatever) like the idea too (which is really what's important). Looks like we are good to go.

I'm really pleased by this. Let's hope it's the beginning of something even bigger, and well done the National Library.

| posted by Simon at 6:07 pm