Consortium Director’s Report

By Amy Beadle, Director

Important Fall Dates/Statewide Database RFP

• October 3: CY 2023 Renewals in Consortia Manager Catalog
• October 5: Wednesday Webinar - Calendar Year Orders and Consortia Manager Review
• November 4: CY Renewal Deadline
• December 2: CY New Orders Due for January 1 Start

As always, almost all of our resources can be ordered throughout the year and prorated, but for a January 1 start, we’re asking for new resource orders to be made by December 2nd. That said, the CCC Technology Center released the RFP for the statewide database contract (currently held by EBSCO) last week. It’s a very tight RFP timeline, with vendor demonstrations scheduled for the first week in November and the contract awarded in mid-November. We are aware that the RFP results may affect your 2023 purchasing decisions, both in January and July. We are having conversations with EBSCO around purchasing options, should the contract be awarded to another vendor. I will share more information as it becomes available in the next several days, but please know that we will be as flexible as possible with the dates shared above, given the timing of the RFP.

JSTOR Update

JSTOR is changing how their resources are sold and priced. As of July 2023, only the entire Arts & Sciences Collection - no longer in smaller collections (I, II, III, etc.) - will be available. ArtStor and eBooks will still be available separately. Pricing will be based on FTE bands and will be discounted for consortiums. This will allow the Consortium to provide an estimated 25% discount to colleges. Preliminary pricing looks to be very reasonable. Once it is released, we will share it with colleges. JSTOR will be presenting at a Wednesday Webinar in February to discuss the upcoming changes. If you have a January 2023 JSTOR renewal and would like to prorate for 6 months in anticipation of the upcoming changes, please let me know.

ASCCC OER

The Consortium and CCL members have been meeting with the ASCCC OER committee and exploring options for possible large-scale licensing possibilities for low-cost textbooks. Discussions are still very preliminary, but we are excited to be a part of the conversation and see how the Consortium might be able to leverage pricing efficiencies and support the statewide OER effort.

Federal DEI Proposal

Unfortunately, our resubmitted 2022-23 Federal DEI Proposal was not approved, regardless of Senator Padilla’s support. We’ll be looking into some additional ways to possibly fund a statewide DEI resource purchase in 2023.