Quebec University Libraries saved more than $3.5 million with consortium negotiations and a shared acquisition management system

17 mai 2021
Highlights

Quebec University Libraries (BUQ) have been negotiating licensed content through their consortium for quite some time, which has paid off!

In 2019–2020, BUQ negotiated $13.8 million worth of licensed digital content on behalf of the libraries. If academic institutions had purchased this content separately, it would have cost an additional $2.3 million.
In 2020–2021, BUQ purchased $15 million worth of content, which represents $3.5 million in total savings.

Purchases increased by 10% this year mainly because BUQ acquired new products, mostly e-books. With COVID-19 and distance learning, libraries focused on electronic resources to support teaching and research.

ConsortiaManager for acquisitions

Quebec University Libraries negotiate and purchase most electronic resources centrally, but individual members must be able to review the content of these agreements at any given time. ConsortiaManager was therefore implemented in May 2020. This software provides a centralized access to the content of acquisition agreements, which is updated in real time, and retroactively since 2015. Libraries can thus plan their acquisitions, and benefit from expertise to make informed decisions for collection development.

BUQ is the first and only academic library consortium in Canada to use ConsortiaManager, thus becoming a reference for other Canadian academic consortia.