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events

‘Despatches from the Fourth Quadrant’: Three observations from this year’s Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities (DCDC) conference

“The problems of the world are not going to be engaged with and solved in Faversham, they’re going to be sorted out in cities like Birmingham.” -Jim Crace “I grew up in Birmingham, where they made useful things and made them well.” -Lee Child There is, prominent in the history and psychogeography of Birmingham – […]

See you in Birmingham for DCDC 2019!

DCDC (Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities) has always been my go-to conference when it comes to digital resources. Each year, the topics are engaging and thought-provoking, providing a forum to connect with colleagues working on opening up access to collections across the UK and beyond. It also perfectly suits my work in providing advice on resource […]

From pilot to service: The digital archival collections group purchasing scheme

The digital archival group purchasing scheme helps Higher Education libraries with the purchasing of digital collections and archives from publishers by making them more affordable. Based on the principle ‘the more products that are purchased, the lower the price’, the digital archival group purchasing scheme has saved Jisc members in Higher Education over £600,000 since […]

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Participation opportunity

Do you want to get your history of science collection digitised? Let us know!

Does your library or archive hold collections on the history of science that you would like to digitise? If so, Jisc and Wiley would like to hear from you! Jisc and Wiley invite UK HE libraries and archives to submit expressions of interest for their collections to be considered for digitisation. If this is for […]

Commercial Digital Archival Collections and the charges for accessing them

At the end of last summer, we were not surprised to see publishers being asked, on one of our email lists, to justify the charges they make for enabling continued access to digital archival collections (DACs). The email was headed ‘enough is enough‘. The issue of platform fees has been a recurring theme for us at […]

Webinar overview of 2018-2019 DAC group purchasing scheme

Over a series of recent webinars members heard about the benefits and costs savings when they buy primary source digital archival collections from the group purchasing scheme. Publishers provided an overview of the wide variety of content available. Under the scheme members get an immediate 20% discount on the list price of all products on […]

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Impact assessment UK Medical Heritage Library Users

Real people, real lives: Digital archival collections beyond academia

For better or worse, it is increasingly accepted that it is no longer the ideal to conduct research which extends the boundaries of knowledge merely for its own sake; which supports, builds upon or refutes the work of others, but which ultimately reflects back upon an enclosed and self-sustaining world of scholarship and discourse. Researchers […]

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Teaching with primary sources

Innovation in the HE classroom

UK higher education has become increasingly focused on the quality of its teaching. Since the implementation of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), we have noted that some universities are developing innovative approaches to engaging students in the use of primary sources at undergraduate level. A small number are implementing initiatives to improve engagement in the […]

Making the purchase of digital archival collections more affordable for UK Higher Education – launch of group purchasing scheme

With increasing pressures on budgets librarians must make hard choices about the content they purchase to enrich learning, teaching and research. The group purchasing scheme – which has saved members £458,000, to date – works on a very simple principle – the more products collectively purchased, the higher the discount granted to all institutions who […]

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e-content Libraries

Digital archival collections: platforms and service charges in Higher Education survey

Jisc would like to invite you to take part in a survey about the cost of annual platform, access and service charges that libraries have to pay for digital archival collections/static databases that they typically acquire as one-off perpetual purchases (ie not subscription content).  We would be grateful if you could follow this link to […]

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Independent Voices

Independent press digitisation – new directions and lessons learned

A couple of year ago Jisc worked with Reveal Digital to provide early access to US independent press publications for UK Higher Education institutions (the US publications are now openly accessible). This led us to working with 13 UK universities to define a set of UK material which would complement the US offer. Earlier this […]

Challenges and Opportunities with Citing Archives Consistently: a joint report commissioned by Research Libraries UK (RLUK), The National Archives (TNA) and Jisc

This report was commissioned by Research Libraries UK (RLUK), The National Archives (TNA) and Jisc to kickstart a discussion about citation practices and how to standardise references to unique and distinct collections (UDC’s) held in repositories across the UK. Every year, tens of thousands of citations are included within the footnotes and endnotes of academic […]

Group purchasing pilot two – outcomes and next steps

The second phase of this pilot terminated on 31 July and has built on the success of the previous one. In pilot two (FY17/18) there were 44 product sales over 27 product titles – an increase of 15 product sales from the first pilot in FY16/17.  The number of institutions that purchased through the scheme […]

Group purchasing pilot: Update on discounted pricing for digital archival collections

In partnership with the sector we reduce duplication of effort and save institutions time and money through the negotiation of pricing and licensing terms for digital content. The group purchasing pilot operates on the principle; that more products bought per publisher by any institution over the course of an academic year, the lower the final […]

Invitation to tender – Digital archival collections group purchasing scheme: A Jisc Collections framework agreement

Jisc Services Ltd (JSL) is looking to work in collaboration with publishers to make digital archival collections (DACs) of primary source materials more affordable to university libraries so researchers, teachers and learners can enjoy access to a wider range of resources and libraries can achieve further efficiencies. DACs can comprise of many forms of digitised […]

Digital archival collections group purchasing pilot: update on publishers collections pages

With one month left of phase two of the group purchasing pilot, here are the quick links to the product pages for the participating publishers Adam Matthew Digital Collections: https://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/Catalogue/Overview/index/2770 Brill: https://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/Catalogue/Overview/index/2769 *EBSCO: https://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/Catalogue/Overview/index/2875 ProQuest: https://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/Catalogue/Overview/index/2766 If you have any queries about ordering any of the publishers’ products, please contact help.digitalresources@jisc.ac.uk *Please note, this page […]

Webinar recording: Archival Collections Group Purchasing Pilot for Higher Education

The recording from the June 6th webinar ‘Archival Collections Group Purchasing Pilot for Higher Education’ is available to view: https://bit.ly/2ttRVIT The pilot is based on a community-centred approach to lowering the cost of digital archival collections of primary source materials for use in higher education in the UK. It follows the simple market principle that […]

Call to publishers: Jisc digital archival collections group purchasing scheme PIN notice

Jisc is working in collaboration with publishers to make digital archival collections of primary source materials more affordable so researchers, teachers and learners can enjoy access to a wider range of resources and libraries can achieve further efficiencies. We are currently running phase two of the Digital Archival collections group purchasing pilot from November 2017 […]

Research Libraries UK, The National Archives and Jisc citation capture survey – deadline extended

The deadline for the citation survey has been extended to midnight, April 27th 2018 Research Libraries UK, in partnership with The National Archives and Jisc have recently commissioned TheResearchBase to undertake a commissioned study into the citation of archive and special collection holding repositories within academic publications (“Citation Capture”) As a part of this important […]

Invitation to complete survey: Citation capture – Enhancing understanding of the use of archives and special collections within academic research and the research outputs produced as a result

Research Libraries UK, in partnership with The National Archives and Jisc, have recently commissioned TheResearchBase to undertake a commissioned study into the citation of archive and special collection holding repositories within academic publications (“Citation Capture”). As a part of this important research, a survey is being undertaken of archivists, librarians, publishers, and academics regarding how […]