Library Consortium Director's Report

By James Wiser, Consortium Director

January Renewals

All renewal orders have now been placed, and the invoices for your college’s renewals are now available to be downloaded and paid. Please download and pay these invoices as soon as you can; we do not mail paper copies of these invoices and expect you to download and handle the invoices for your college. If you are having difficulty accessing a renewing resource or a new resource you’ve ordered, please let me know.  For new subscriptions that begin on January 1, 2019, you’ll want to be on the lookout for activation emails from vendors at some point during December.

New Procurement Website

This coming spring renewal will be the last renewal period run through the current procurement website. Beginning in May 2019, the consortium will begin migrating its procurement site to a new business system called ConsortiaManager, which will allow you (and I) the opportunity to do many things we can’t currently do with our system. Be on the lookout for more information about this in March or April.

CountryWatch

Students and faculty in all of the California community colleges will continue to have free access to CountryWatch.  This database, which is a major resource tool for businesses, consultants and researchers, contains up-to-date economic, political, and social data about every country on the globe.  The Council of Chief Librarians and the Community College League are continuing their joint commitment to full coverage of the cost.  This is the seventeenth year that the resource has been provided to our colleges at no cost.  Both organizations – partners in the cooperative purchasing program for online resources for CCC libraries – use a portion of the fees generated by the program to provide the database to every college regardless of the level of participation in the purchasing program.  CCL and the League see this as an opportunity to use the program to benefit the colleges over and above the main focus of the purchasing program.

Holiday Office Closure

The Community College League of California will close its offices December 17-January 2 for the holiday break. I will be checking email occasionally during this time but if you have questions about an order or a renewal, please get those questions to me before December 17th.
 
Happy holidays,
James Wiser