WHEEL+

WHEEL+ (Wales Higher Education Electronic Library) collaborates on the shared procurement of electronic resources including:
  • identification of joint purchasing / licensing opportunities for electronic resources, subscriptions and content related services.
  • identification, negotiation and evaluation of prospective agreements
  • management of internal administration relating to agreements (e.g. joint invoicing arrangements)

WHEEL+ ’s approach is based on driving access and shared value across all member institutions, but its remit also includes consideration of resource acquisition for subsets of the membership where the content in question may not be appropriate to the full member list.

 

Details of members:

·Tom Francis, Vice-chair (Aberystwyth University)

· Wayne Morris, Secretary (University of South Wales)

· Martin Taylor (Aberystwyth University)

· Marjan Baas Harmsma (Bangor University)

· Chrissie Ley Hughes (Bangor University)

· Tracey Middleton, Chair (Bangor University)

· Luisa Cáceres-Soto (Cardiff Metropolitan University)

· Mark Hughes (Cardiff Metropolitan University)

· Marie Lancaster (Cardiff Metropolitan University)

· Kath Hudson (Cardiff University)

· Peter Hale (Cardiff University)

· Tracey Stanley (Cardiff University)

· Kristine Chapman (National Museum Wales)

· Robert Lacey (National Library of Wales)

· Helen Griffiths (Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama)

· Leanda Blanch (Swansea University)

· Annette Linton (Swansea University)

· Claire Vivian (Swansea University)

· Bernadette Ryan (University of South Wales

· John Dalling (University of Wales Trinity Saint David)

· Suzy Fisher ((University of Wales Trinity Saint David)

 

Sharing the procurement of electronic resources

 

Working with JISC Collections, WHEEL+ has negotiated into place a number of current agreements for content to be available across participating consortium members.

The list of agreements in place covers content packages from the following suppliers:

  • Gale Cengage – Times Digital Archive
  • Open University Press (OUP) – Journal content
  • Sage – Journal Content
  • Wiley – subset of the JISC journal content agreement

All WHELF libraries are also participants in the Journal Usage Statistics Portal (JUSP) and KnowledgeBase+ (KB+) services provided by JISC.

Through participation in those JISC services, and the ground-breaking WHELF Shared LMS platform (the group engages closely with this work strand), WHEEL+ seeks to take a collaborative approach to managing processes and usage data in order to drive efficiencies and savings for its members in the resource procurement arena.

WHEEL+also works in partnership with the Southern Universities Purchasing Consortium (SUPC) and the Higher Education Purchasing Consortium Wales (HEPCW) around consortial agreements for the supply of books and serial subscription services.

WHEEL+ are an active group, coming together 4 times per year across a mix of physical meetings and video conference participation.