Serials, Periodicals, and Associated Services (Print and Digital)

Tender description

The current ‘Serials, Periodicals and Associated Services’ agreement is led by SUPC and supported by HEPCW, LUPC, NEUPC, and NWUPC along with the four specialist library consortia Academic Libraries North, MUAL, NEYAL, and WHELF. The agreement ran for an initial 2 year period and has had two 12 month extensions, totally four years. It expires on 30th April 2023. The agreement scope remains similar to the current agreement and will cover the supply of serials by subscriptions agents in print and/or electronic formats. This includes current, backissue, backsets and digital archives of periodicals; newspapers and annuals (annual conference proceedings, reports, yearbooks, etc); the journals, memoirs, proceedings, transactions and other similar publications of societies; numbered monographic series; standing orders; standards and databases. Also included are associated services relating to consolidation or usage analysis. One likely change is an accommodation of the requirements of government departments, who will not have access to a framework agreement from 2023. Some will have requirements that may be covered by the existing agreement but others use more specialised suppliers, a requirement that would entail a second Lot so as not to dilute the HE requirement. The agreement will remain as flexible as possible to cover provision of the transformational agreements being negotiated with publishers by Jisc, where those publishers are willing to contract via an agent.