Frontline GMS and Ringgold launch unique consortium resource

["Laura Cox" <laura.cox@frontlinegms.com>]

18th April 2011, Towcester, UK; Beaverton, Oregon and Crystal 
River, Florida, USA.  The Consortium Directory Online (CDO), a 
collaboration between Frontline GMS and Ringgold has now been 
launched and is available at www.consortiumdirectory.com.

It is the most comprehensive directory of the library consortium 
market available.

Features include:
*        Search for consortia by region, country, name or 
acronym, subject speciality, membership type and consortium type.
*        Search and browse by institution and the products 
licensed.
*        Analysis tools to determine market penetration and 
targets.
*        Ringgold identifiers are used to cross-match 
institutions and the publishers and vendors licensing information 
to the consortium.
*        Each record includes full contact information, including 
key contacts for licence negotiation.
*        Each record lists members and publishers and vendors 
licensing to the consortium.
*        Export of records into Excel format or PDF.

As well as the above content and features, Gold subscribers can 
access the following information:
*   Electronic content acquisition policy
*   Licensing information, including required licensing 
terms
*   The structure of the consortium, its aims and 
objectives, key activities and financial details
*   Links to FTE data, member contacts and products acquired 
by each institutional member
*   Gold subscribers may also integrate the Consortium 
Directory with the Ringgold database.

Laura Cox, Managing Director of Frontline said: "We are delighted 
to launch the Directory Online, it will offer publishers and 
vendors an unrivalled resource to fully understand the complex 
and constantly changing consortium market.  The analytical tools 
available allow publishers and vendors to see exactly what 
products the consortia are purchasing and compare vendor to 
vendor.

Helen Henderson, Ringgold's VP of Marketing, Research and 
Development said: "This new consortium resource enhances the 
Ringgold Identify services for any publisher, and substantially 
reduces the time taken to analyse the consortium holdings in 
order to provide accurate quotations for site licenses. For those 
publishers licensing the complete Identify database, the complete 
integration of this resource with Ringgold Identifiers will 
provide a valuable and competitive marketing opportunity. "

For further information, to arrange a live demonstration or for 
pricing, please contact directory@frontlinegms.com.

About Ringgold
More than 50 publishers currently use Ringgold's database and its 
related services to organise their customer data, prepare 
quotations for licenses and deals, and also for market analysis. 
Ringgold partners with other publisher services companies and 
consultants, including software and service providers such as 
DataSalon, Ingenta and Thomson Reuters.

Helen Henderson, Ringgold's VP of Marketing, Research and 
Development, acts as consultant to the National Standards 
Information Organization (NISO) I2 Working Group on Institutional 
Identifiers, which is establishing an identifier standard for 
applications in e-resource publishing, e-learning, institutional 
repositories, and library management systems.

About Frontline
Frontline GMS was set up by Laura Cox in 2004 and provides sales 
and marketing consultancy services to the academic and 
professional publishing industry.  Frontline specialises in 
advising publishers, vendors and intermediaries in several areas, 
specifically setting pricing and business models, and using and 
analysing subscription, customer and usage data, negotiating with 
library consortia, marketing strategy, and PR.  Frontline also 
undertakes major research projects and market research and 
provides PR, consortia negotiation and data analysis.