FinELib consortium centrally acquires electronic materials 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 materials to order 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 and invoices licence fees from consortium members.
Important considerations to be taken into account regarding materials acquired by FinELib consortium include:
- Each consortium member makes an independent decision about their subscription.
- Each subscriber acquires the materials for the entire organisation, not for eg. single departments.
- Authentication is based on IP addresses.
- Higher education institutions and research institutes must be provided with the right for remote use.
- Materials acquired by the consortium must fulfil the licensing principles of the consortium.
- Ordering party -specific usage statistics must be provided on the use of the materials, preferably according to COUNTER recommendations.
- If the material acquisition must be submitted to competitive tendering pursuant to public procurement legislation, a competitive tendering procedure will be organised instead of negotiations. Materials subject to competitive tendering are materials that are available from several publishers or agents and the acquisition value of which exceeds the threshold value determined in legislation.
Pricing
The FinELib consortium does not charge commission on e-materials acquired through the consortium. Members pay the price determined by the publisher or the agent for the materials. With regard to journal packages, the cost division model of the consortium will be used, according to which the overall price of the e-materials will be redistributed within the consortium among to the parties ordering the materials.
If you wish, you can base your product pricing on user numbers of consortium members.
The invoicing is done centrally, so that you can send just one invoice to the FinELib consortium.
New materials
Every year, consortium members select some new materials for consortium negotiations. The materials are selected by a vote in which all consortium member organisations may participate.
If you wish to market your products to members of the FinELib consortium, you can fill in the material presentation form. The information is available for consortium members for one year. Marketing information is meant especially to support the consortium's own acquisitions, but the members may also propose that materials marketed through this channel be accepted as new consortium materials.
