Scandinavian consortia choose Swets Blackwell - Groundbreaking agreements carried out for Iceland & Sweden

[Ann Okerson <aokerson@pantheon.yale.edu>]

Of possible interest...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 17:39:11 +0100
From: Sarah Kellman <skellman@swets.nl>
To: 'Editors' <press@nl.swetsblackwell.com>
Subject: Scandinavian consortia choose Swets Blackwell -  Groundbreaking a
    greements carried out for Iceland & Sweden

Lisse, the Netherlands
November 7, 2001

- - - Swets Blackwell is pleased to announce two groundbreaking consortium
agreements - - -

Swets Blackwell structures landmark agreement for Iceland - Entire
population gains access to over 2000 e-journals

Swets Blackwell have successfully arranged a groundbreaking national
license between the National Steering Committee of Iceland and six major
STM publishers. The discussions were carried out by Swets Blackwell's
office in Copenhagen, Denmark, in close collaboration with their head
office in Lisse, the Netherlands.

Under the terms of the agreement, Icelandic libraries, government and
academic institutions, as well as private citizens, will have full text
access to journals published by the following distinguished publishers:
Academic Press - now part of Elsevier Science, Blackwell Publishing, S.
Karger Publishers, Kluwer Academic Publishers and Springer-Verlag.
Iceland's 283,000 inhabitants can now access more than 2,000 e-journals
from their offices as well as their private homes. For the first time,
publishers can analyze the "e-journal behavior" of an entire nation.

Geert Visscher, CEO of Swets Blackwell, commented: "It has been both a
challenge and a privilege to work on a contract of such a singular nature.
We were able to bring Swets Blackwell's considerable experience working
with both libraries and publishers to the task." Peter Munksgaard,
Director of Swets Blackwell Denmark, added: "The size of the Icelandic
population made the contract possible, but the publishers' willingness to
walk down untrodden paths was a significant factor in its success. Giving
access to everyone within a single country is an achievement all involved
can be proud of."

The National Steering Committee in Iceland is delighted with the
agreement. The committee's administrator, Thora Gylfadottir, added: "Our
users are very happy with the e-journals. With one stroke, Swets Blackwell
and the participating publishers have given the Icelandic population
access to an enormous collection of knowledge."

* * * * *

Swedish Federation of County Councils consortium appoint Swets Blackwell
as handling agent

Swets Blackwell is also pleased to announce their appointment by the
Swedish Federation of County Councils (SFCC) consortium to act as the
handling agent for their electronic publications. The agreement with the
consortium, whose official name is EiRA (Effective information Retrieval
and Acquisition) is for a period of two years, and went into effect on
September 1, 2001.

Under the terms of the agreement, Swets Blackwell will be the principal
supplier of electronic publications for the SFCC national hospital
consortium, with all hospitals from 14 counties already on board.  The
content will be provided by Ovid Technologies Inc., who is the primary
aggregator and provider of the 5 medical databases and 70 e-journals for
this national consortium. Ovid's clinical solution is used by thousands of
institutions around the world and combines top-quality evidence-based
medicine content, bibliographic databases, full text journals and books
and decision support tools with feature-rich software and interfaces
designed to enhance the clinical decision making process.

Swets Blackwell has extensive international experience with various types
of consortia within both the academic and corporate sectors. They have
been the Managing Agent for NESLI (National Electronic Site Licence
Initiative) since 1998, and were recently reconfirmed in this role through
2002.

Geert Visscher, CEO of Swets Blackwell, commented: "We are very pleased
that the SFCC have chosen us to be the handling agent for the EiRA
consortium, and look forward to a long and successful consortial
relationship." Per Kjellander, Director of Swets Blackwell Sweden, added:
"This consortia is the first of its kind in Sweden for the medical market,
and as such will greatly impact the ease with which hospitals can access
the information they need."

SFCC's Jan Lindmark remarked: "This agreement with Swets Blackwell and
Ovid Technologies will enable the employees within the counties to access
the most up-to-date scientific information efficiently and effectively.
This is a natural step for retrieval of information regarding nursing,
care and treatment."

SFCC are responsible for matters of common interest to citizens that are
too wide-reaching and costly for individual municipalities to manage on
their own, such as health care, which is the focus of the majority of
SFCC's efforts. Other areas include dental care, public transport,
culture, higher and upper-secondary education, tourism, the environment,
support for business and industry and regional growth and development.

Ovid Technologies, a Wolters-Kluwer International Health & Science
company, is a leading provider of electronic information to the
scientific, technical and medical markets. Headquartered in New York, Ovid
develops sophisticated search software for institutions and bundles this
technology with full-text, bibliographic and summary content databases.
Ovid software is used by thousands of prominent institutions worldwide,
including public and private universities, library consortia,
pharmaceutical manufacturers, hospitals and government agencies.

Swets Blackwell offers complete solutions for the needs of their 60,000
corporate, academic, R&D, medical, and government library and information
center clients worldwide, 30% of who rank among the Fortune 500 companies.
They work in partnership with 65,000 major publishers and suppliers of
professional information. Swets Blackwell has an annual turnover in excess
of US$ 1 billion and a staff of nearly 1,000 employees worldwide. Their
head office is located in Lisse, the Netherlands, and they maintain 23
offices in 20 countries across six continents. Find out more by visiting
www.swetsblackwell.com <http://www.swetsblackwell.com>