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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 50| April 2001


The CASL Consortium Agreement Signed

CASL Consortium

In a clockwise direction (from back left hand side):
Margaret Allen (SA), John Thwaite (ACT), Des Stephens (QLD), Claire Forte (WA), Siobhan Gaskell (TAS),
Lea Giles-Peters (NT), Jan Fullerton (NLA), Dagmar Schmidmaier (Chairperson, CASL) and Frances Awcock (VIC)

At a meeting in Hobart 22–23 March 2001, members of the Council of Australian State Libraries (CASL) signed a landmark agreement to form a consortium for the purchase of access to commercial electronic information resources. All of the State and Territory libraries and the National Library are members of CASL and will participate in the Consortium.

Recognising that online products are proliferating in number and scope and are often expensive with complex licensing arrangements, CASL formed a Consortia and Licensing Working Group (CLWG) in October 1999 to investigate the feasibility of establishing a consortium. The aim was to simplify licensing arrangements, improve cost benefits, and to explore opportunities to make electronic products more widely available to Australians.

The agreement signed in Hobart establishes the Consortium on a trial basis for 12 months and defines the operating principles and procedures. It enables the NLA to act as lead negotiator for the consortium and authorises it to sign agreements on behalf of other member libraries.

The Consortium has selected five products for access during the first year. Negotiations for three, Australian Public Affairs Full Text (RMIT Publishing), Business Who’s Who of Australia and an associated product, Jobson’s OnLine (Dun & Bradstreet) have been finalised and access to them will be available from early April. Licence agreements for another two are still under discussion.

These products will be available to patrons who visit the participating libraries. Assuming the basis for a successful consortium is established during the 12-month trial period, it is intended in subsequent years to extend membership to public libraries, and to provide the option of ‘remote access’ to products, that is, access from patrons’ homes. The ultimate vision of the CLWG is a consortium potentially comprising all public, State, Territory and National libraries that would enable all Australians, regardless of where they live, to have equitable access to a core set of online information resources. Public libraries have an important role in making information readily available within the communities where people live.

One of the main aims of the Consortium has been to simplify licence negotiation. A Statement of Principles Guiding Licence Negotiation has been formulated in an attempt to streamline negotiations with vendors, informing them of requirements, particularly in relation to core library business, including document supply, provision of information to remote readers, and the need for long term access to information.

The CASL Consortium is an excellent example of cooperation among Australian libraries that enables expertise to be shared, the value of the taxpayer’s dollar to be maximised, and services extended to a wider range of library patrons.

For further information contact Margaret Phillips, mphillip@nla.gov.au or by telephone on (02) 6262 1527.

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