FinELib consortium centrally acquires electronic products and services for its member organisations. Consortium members include Finnish universities, universities of applied sciences, research institutes and public libraries (see the list of consortium members). Each member decides independently what products/services to subscribe to through the consortium. The consortium’s service unit, the FinELib office, is located in the National Library. The FinELib office negotiates the agreements and pricing, collects orders from consortium members, signs the agreements on behalf of the consortium members and invoices license fees from consortium members.
Important considerations for consortium acquisitions
Note the following considerations:
- Each consortium member makes an independent decision about their subscription.
- Each subscriber acquires the e-resources for the entire organisation, not for eg. single departments.
- Authentication is based on IP addresses.
- Subscriber specific usage statistics must be provided, preferably according to COUNTER Code of Practice.
- If so required under the law, an acquisition will be made through a public tendering process. A public tendering process will be held if the e-resource is available from multiple sources and the value of the resource exceeds the threshold value defined in the public procurement law.
Acquisition principles
E-resources acquired by the consortium must fulfil the FinELib Consortium Acquisition Principles.
Pricing
The FinELib consortium does not charge commission on e-resources acquired through the consortium. Members pay the subscription price negotiated with the publisher or the agent. You are free to base your product pricing on the consortium members user figures. The invoicing is done centrally by the FinELib office, so you can send one invoice for FinELib consortium.
New e-resources
The consortium selects new e-resources for consortium negotiations by specific procedure. The selection is based on a vote in which all consortium member organisations may participate.
Promote your electronic products and services to members of the FinELib consortium
You can promote your e-resources to members of the FinELib consortium by filling this form. The information is available for consortium members in a secure online service.
Marketing information is meant to support the consortium members direct acquisitions, but the members may also propose that resources marketed through this channel be accepted for consortium negotiations.
