Project preparation

Since the end of the 90s the Czech government has supported the purchase of electronic information sources as an essential “resource” for improvement of research and education – as it is also common in a number of developed countries. Even though it is economically desirable to closely coordinate purchase of required sources of individual institutions, the support has been for a long time provided in the form of an economic competition. In year 2016 there were approximately 18 consortia serving from a very few up to 70 institutions; in total there were 130 institutions subscribing to circa a hundred of sources (which can be a simple individual important journal or a collection of a few thousand journals or hundreds of books).

This model has gradually self-optimised when it comes to number of “consortia”, yet still, according to a study carried out by Deloitte, suffered from high administrative burdens, fragmentation and from that emerging scattered negotiating competence creating sub-optimal license and pricing conditions. Due to the influence of funding a part of the “projects” from European funds the fragmentation grew even bigger.

That’s how the idea of one centre came to light – CzechELib, a centre with a concentrated negotiating authority that will effectively take care of electronic information sources procurement for the whole RDI area, it will manage the sources and it will manage trustworthy statistics about their usage. For the above mentioned reasons comes the centralised coordination of EIR access provided to public universities represented by Czech Rectors Conference and Council of Higher Education Institutions, Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic, National Library of Czech Republic, National Library of Technology, The Research, Development and Innovation Council, Association of Libraries of Czech Universities and other important organisations. Project goals and project charter were continuously discussed with nominated delegates of the above mentioned subjects within the boundaries of close and broader work group.

Process of project preparations