IReL (Irish Research electronic Libraries)

["Paul Harwood" <pharwood@contentcomplete.com>]

PRESS RELEASE

Oxford, October 2004

IReL Consortium achieves significant savings through negotiations
outsourced to Content Complete Limited 

Content Complete Limited (CCL), the independent, outsourced negotiations
service established in June last year by Albert Prior and Paul Harwood, is
playing a key role in the recently established IReL initiative, the
e-journal access project jointly funded by the Irish Higher Education
Authority and Science Foundation Ireland.

IReL (Irish Research electronic Libraries), currently covers the seven
universities of Ireland, and responsibility for the initiative rests with
the CHIU (Conference of Heads of Irish Universities) Librarians Committee.
Day-to-day responsibilities have been delegated to a Steering Group
made-up of members from the participating institutions who have worked
closely with Content Complete throughout.

In phase one of the initiative, which commenced earlier this year, CCL
successfully negotiated 10 online journal agreements on behalf of IReL,
with significant savings achieved. The publishers with whom discussions
were held in the first phase included: Blackwell Publishing, Elsevier,
Institute of Physics, ISI, Springer, Nature, Science (AAAS) and Wiley. A
large number of other, smaller publishers also featured in this phase of
the programme. Several thousand online journals are now available to the
research community in Ireland as a result.

John FitzGerald, Chair of the CHIU Librarians Group which is directing the
programme said:  'We have been delighted with our partnership with CCL. In
addition to the savings we have achieved, we have also been able to move
extremely quickly as a result of their dedicated and focused efforts'.

Phase Two of IReL is already underway, and the services of CCL have been
retained.

About IReL:

IReL (Irish Research electronic Libraries) is a joint initiative of The
Higher Education Authority (HEA) and Science Foundation Ireland (SFI),
designed to improve access to a wide range of electronic journals for
academics and researchers working in Irish Universities. Some =8820m is
being invested in the programme between now and 2008. The project is being
directed by the CHIU Committee of Chief Librarians, currently Chaired by
John FitzGerald, University Librarian at University College Cork. A Press
Release announcing the initiative was produced in August this year and can
be found at
http://www.hea.ie/index.cfm/page/news/sub/755/section/NewsRelDetails/key
/189

Content Complete <http://www.contentcomplete.com/> was established in June
2003 by Paul Harwood and Albert Prior. The Company provides outsourced
negotiation and support services for organisations seeking to licence
electronic content. CCL is also JISC's Negotiation Agent for NESLi2, the
UK's national electronic licencing initiative for Higher and Further
Education and provides similar services for a number of other clients in
the corporate and public sectors.

For more information, please contact:

Paul Harwood
Director
Content Complete Ltd
Unit 7, North Leigh Business Park
North Leigh
Oxfordshire
OX29 6SW
UK

<mailto:pharwood@contentcomplete.com>
Tel: +44 (0) 1993 880044
www.contentcomplete.com