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:

  • Tracey Middleton, Chair (Bangor University)
  • Tom Francis, Vice-chair (Aberystwyth University)
  • Wayne Morris, Secretary (University of South Wales)
  • Chrissie Ley Hughes (Bangor University)
  • Luisa Cáceres-Soto (Cardiff Metropolitan University)
  • Mark Hughes (Cardiff Metropolitan University)
  • Julie Neenan (Cardiff Metropolitan University)
  • Kathryn Hudson (Cardiff University)
  • Tracey Stanley (Cardiff University)
  • Kristine Chapman (Amgueddfa Cymru / National Museum Wales)
  • Robert Lacey (National Library of Wales)
  • Helen Bader (Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama)
  • Annette Linton (Swansea University)
  • John Dalling (University of Wales Trinity Saint David)
  • Suzy Fisher ((University of Wales Trinity Saint David)
  • Nicola Watkinson (Wrexham Glyndŵr University)

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.