ALJC Closes First Five Deals

[Ylann Schemm <yschemm@nl.swets.com>]

FYI, of interest to liblicense readers:
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PRESS RELEASE

Lisse, the Netherlands
December 15th, 2003

ALJC Closes First Five Deals

Swets Information Services announced today that it has signed the first
five deals for the ALPSP Learned Journals Collection (ALJC) with
organizations across several countries. Among the new subscribers are the
University of Ume� in Sweden, the University of Queensland, and Fremantle
Hospital & Health Services in Australia. In addition, a pricing and
licensing proposal has been accepted by NESLi2, the UK's national
electronic journals initiative for Higher and Further Education, and a
licence will shortly be signed with major pharmaceutical corporation
GlaxoSmithKline. A large number of additional deals are also currently
under negotiation.

The ALJC (www.alpsp-collection.org) is a unique collection of 247 journals
from 25 diverse publishers. The collection enables small and medium-sized
non-profit and commercial publishers to package their journals with a
single umbrella license, pricing model and delivery platform. Swets
Information Services serves as the ALJC's worldwide sales, marketing and
access channel. The ALJC spares customers the hassle of negotiating
e-licenses and pricing with diverse publishers, allowing them to access
high quality e-journals directly via SwetsWise Online Content.

Janine Schmidt, University Librarian at the University of Queensland,
said: "A subscription to the Learned Journals Collection presents the
University of Queensland Cybrary with the opportunity to further enhance
our electronic journal collection. Our researchers rely heavily on
journals for access to the very latest research and these prestigious
Society titles will be welcomed."

Mats Almkvist, Ume� University's Head Librarian, remarked: "ALPSP's unique
journal package initiative from non-commercial publishers is a very
positive one. Ume� University is keen to support this. During the past few
years, smaller publishers have been squeezed out by the big commercial
publishers as academic budgets have largely been spent on the publications
of commercial publishers."

Cheryl Hamill, Librarian in Charge at Fremantle Hospital & Health Service,
stated: "Fremantle Hospital & Health Service Library in Western Australia
is pleased to take up the ALPSP medicine collection with Swets as it
offers a fair price, library-friendly licensing conditions, and
COUNTER-compliant statistics reporting."

Sally Morris, Chief Executive of ALPSP, said: "We are delighted that Swets
Information Services is making such excellent progress in selling licences
to the ALJC on behalf of the participating publishers. We believe that
this is a much needed service for smaller publishers, and are confident
that the success of the ALJC Collection in its first year will convince
many more publishers to participate in 2005 and beyond."

Steven Hartman, Swets Information Services' Commercial Director, said:
"Though the collection has only just been launched in September, ALJC has
already achieved significant sales successes. This sets an excellent
precedent for expansion on both the subscriber and the publisher side in
the near future."

About ALJC

The 247 ALJC titles are available both in the full Collection and in three
discipline-specific packages in the areas of medicine & life science (85
titles), science & technology (57 titles), and the arts, humanities &
social sciences (129 titles). Pricing is based on a percentage of the
ALJC's current collective print value and is guaranteed for 3 years.  
Both print-plus-electronic and electronic-only options are available -
customers may migrate from one to the other during the 3-year license
agreement period.  Special consortial arrangements are available.  
Detailed pricing and license information is available on the ALJC website.

About ALPSP

ALPSP is the international trade association for the community of
not-for-profit publishers and those who work with them to disseminate
academic and professional information.  It was founded in 1972, and
currently has 280 members in 28 countries. ALPSP carries out research and
other projects, monitors national and international issues, and represents
members' interests to the wider world. It offers an extensive program of
seminars and training courses as well as an informative website
(www.alpsp.org), a quarterly journal, Learned Publishing, and a monthly
electronic newsletter, ALPSP Alert.  The ALPSP Learned Journals Collection
will be followed by other collective initiatives on behalf of members.

About Swets Information Services

Swets Information Services is one of the world's largest providers of
subscription and information management solutions. It offers a wide range
of services to its 60,000 corporate, academic, R&D, medical, and
government library and information center clients worldwide, whose ranks
include over 30% of Fortune 500 companies. Swets Information Services
works in partnership with 65,000 major publishers and suppliers of
professional information. It has annual revenues in excess of US$1 billion
and a staff of over 1,000 employees worldwide. The head office is located
in Lisse, the Netherlands, and Swets' maintains offices in 23 countries
across six continents. www.swets.com.

News Media Contact
Ylann Schemm, 
Communications Executive
Swets Information Services
P.O. Box 830
2160 SZ Lisse, The Netherlands
Tel.: +31 (0) 252 435 584
Fax: +31 (0) 252 435 514
Email: press@nl.swets.com
www.swets.com