ON THIS PAGE:
- What is the Offer Program?
- How are resources selected for the Offer Program?
- What determines the Pricing of an Offer?
- What determines a library’s Eligibility for an Offer?
- How a Vendor participates?
- Does the Offer Program provide other opportunities to engage with SCELC libraries?
What is the Offer Program?
SCELC’s Offer Program presents electronic resources at an exceptional value to a growing network of over 300 Member and Affiliate Institutions. It is designed to introduce new products as well as extend visibility to existing products.
How are resources selected for the Offer Program?
The Offer Program reflects the products made available to the greatest number of libraries at the most advantageous price. An offer’s success is generally driven by library demand and broad appeal.
What determines the Pricing of an Offer?
SCELC licenses products to libraries at a lower rate than an individual library would pay directly to a vendor. While pricing and discounts vary by vendor and product, the SCELC discounted price is to never exceed the cost a library could negotiate on its own.
The Licensing Services Team works closely with each vendor to ensure offer pricing provides the best value and is scaled appropriately for its libraries. Pricing is most commonly tiered by Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) and/or Carnegie Classification. As such, the majority of SCELC Member and Affiliate institutions are characterized as small libraries and are typically represented within the smallest FTE tier.
List and discounted pricing is made available to libraries for analysis and reporting purposes. If a vendor is unable to provide a discounted price for its products, then SCELC will not pursue an offer.
What determines a library’s Eligibility for an Offer?
SCELC is an opt-in consortium and our diverse membership includes academic, research and medical institutions. Additional special-interest communities within SCELC include art schools, seminaries, museum libraries and more.
Member and Affiliate libraries are located in other states beyond California. Any restrictions on eligibility are determined by the vendor. Visit About Our Libraries to learn more.
How a Vendor participates?
SCELC now integrates product information from Active Offers into ConsortiaManager – SCELC’s catalog and ordering software. In this way, SCELC anticipates libraries’ needs and partners with vendors to help bring these products to market at an outstanding value. As SCELC continues with its integration to ConsortiaManager, libraries are now able to view their individual price quotes and navigate the ordering process with ease.
Wherever possible SCELC negotiates a consortial license agreement with vendors to alleviate the institutional burden of having to negotiate individual licenses with each subscribing institution. Orders, invoices, and renewals are also managed by SCELC.
Does the Offer Program provide other opportunities to engage with SCELC libraries?
When working with a specific vendor, SCELC evaluates how well the resource meets the needs of libraries and their user community. This evaluation is executed by the SCELC staff as well as the Collections and Electronic Resources Committee and other advisory committees.