Staff and students at Australia’s Group of Eight sandstone universities will gain improved access to more than 700 journals online from January 2003 in a new deal with Kluwer.
Kluwer Online Journals provides electronic access to a vast and growing collection of the most respected scholarship in the world. Designed for academic and corporate libraries, as well as the individual researcher, the journals gateway offers:
Complete tables of content, abstracts and full-text articles from more than 650 journals
Over 50,000 new articles published each year in HTML abstract or PDF, including all figures, tables and high-resolution images
Seamless access via IP authentication for subscriptions - no log-in or password required
Powerful search engine with advanced search capabilities
Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Links to databases, including ISI/Web of Science, CSA and others
The Group of Eight libraries have purchased all journals jointly. Each university will contribute to the costs and ALL researchers in each university will have access to all the journal titles online. The deal is exclusive to the Go8 universities and will deliver site-wide, multi-campus access to journals via the Internet. This will provide a major boost to researchers in the member universities who rely heavily on journals for access to the very latest research.
Current Chair of the Group of 8, Vice Chancellor of the University of Queensland, Professor John Hay said that the Group of 8 universities undertook over 70 per cent of all university research in Australia. They played a significant role in cutting edge research in the creation of a knowledge-based economy. The Group of 8 consistently demonstrated their capacity to cooperate in research. The joint purchase of this significant research resource is further evidence of the cooperative spirit and would enhance the research endeavour across Australia.
Since all journals in the Kluwer deal will be available electronically as soon as they are published, this will speed access to the latest research. The approach demonstrates the power of consortia in stretching tight university budgets to their utmost. It also reverses the seemingly unstoppable trend of journal cuts due to journal price rises and diminished buying power abroad because of the still-weak Australian dollar.
The negotiations for purchase have been faciliated by DA Information Services, a wholly Australian -owned company who have been supplying libraries with services throughout Australasia since 1951.
University Librarian at the University of Queensland and Convenor of the Group of 8 libraries, Ms Janine Schmidt, said access to journals would be provided through each institution’s library catalogue, making each journal’s content only a click or two away for users.
"The Kluwer deal will deliver something for everyone," she said. "Kluwer publish across a wide range of disciplines such as medicine and health, and in the social and physical sciences. Titles range from Administration and policy in mental health, through Asian Pacific Law Review and Autonomous robots to Atomic energy."
The Group of Eight comprises the Universities of Queensland, WA, NSW, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Sydney, and the ANU.
Contact: Ms Janine Schmidt, University Librarian, University of Queensland.
j.Schmidt@library.uq.edu.au, phone 07 3365 6342 or Mrs Jocelyn Priddey, Manager, Collection Development, University of Queensland. j.priddey@library.uq.edu.au, phone 07 3365 6352
For further information contact Virginia Walsh, Executive Director,
The Group of Eight, on telephone 02-6239 5488 or 0413 880 885.
