Colleges form cooperative

CSU, community campuses join forces to buy electronic information

By Sharon Nagy, On-Line Forty-Niner

Wednesday, September 30, 1998

In an attempt to increase buying power, the California State University has joined forces with the California Community College system to launch one of the largest cooperatives in the nation for licensing electronic information.

Lexis-Nexis, Dow Jones, on-line newspapers, academic journals and other publications will be some of the resources included in the cooperative.

The increasing demand for available on-line services from students and faculty has prompted California's public universities and colleges to provide access to quality electronic information resources, CSU officials said.

"Collectively the CSU campuses have saved millions of dollars by joining forces in the past decade. We will save millions more with the new system over the next few years," said Ken Swisher, media spokesperson for the Chancellor's Office. "In addition, we will be able to buy services that we weren't able to buy in the past."

Swisher said the project will begin as soon as possible. The CSU's Software and Electronic Information Resources office is managing the project, utilizing a buying program that will manifest the most attractive prices.

"We will be seeing more and more of this kind of partnership in higher education in the future," said CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed. "It just makes sense to work together."

Three organizations are overseeing the operation of the cooperative. SEIR will negotiate all contracts for information resources.

The Community College League of California, a nonprofit public corporation with headquarters in Sacramento, will act as agent for the colleges and coordinate efforts to make information resources available to all 106 individual colleges and satellite centers within the state, CSU officials said.

The California Community College's Council of Chief Librarians will be responsible for assisting the Community College League of California in announcing special offers and in distributing information about the project throughout the community college system, CSU officials said.

In addition, the cooperative will establish a special committee of community college librarians this fall to ensure continuing success of the program and to find ways to maximize benefits of the shared acquisition of electronic information.