Oxford Holds Price for Core Collection,
Lowers FTE Weighting for Public Libraries

BCR and Oxford University Press (OUP) are pleased to report that subscription rates for Oxford Reference Online: Core Collection will not increase for 2003-04.

Public libraries serving a population of more than 100,000 also will benefit from a major change in OUP's FTE weighting factor, on which charges for OUP databases are based. Previously, only libraries serving a population of more than 1 million were able to drop to the next lower level in FTEs. For example, last year a public library serving 150,000 people was weighted at 4 percent = 6,000 FTEs. This year, that same library is weighted at 3.5 percent = 5,250 FTEs, a savings of 750 FTEs or $129.75 annually for the Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED).

Subscription rates for 2003-04 for OED Online, American National Biography Online (ANB) and OUP's newly acquired Grove dictionaries of art and music are not yet available. Please watch BCR's Web site and BCR-L, BCR's electronic mailing list, for a pricing announcement.

Oxford University Press' recent purchase of the Grove products allows BCR libraries that subscribe to both Oxford and Grove products to renew their subscriptions to all the databases using a single BCR Web form for the 2003-04 subscription year. Access to both OUP and Grove subscriptions expire on June 30. Libraries are encouraged to renew their subscriptions before that date to ensure that a lapse in access does not occur. To renew or find out more information about the databases, libraries should go to www.bcr.org/reference/OUP/OUP-Menu.html.

Renewing Grove users who do not already subscribe to OUP products must sign an OUP license agreement. Oxford University Press is creating a new license agreement that incorporates the Grove products. BCR will offer the new license agreement as a PDF file when it is available.

Customers renewing Grove and OUP products are covered under their current signed OUP license, which allows for add-on products. All new subscribers to any of the databases must use the new agreement.

Free Trials Available
BCR libraries not currently using OUP products may want to visit www.anb.org/ams/user/trial2003network.html to sign up for free trials of any of the OUP/Grove dictionaries and other databases. The trials run through June 30. Staff at member libraries need only complete the online form and check off the products they want to try out.

OUP also plans to release two new products in September. Watch for more information in Action for Libraries about:

• The Premium Collection, which offers a much different level of content from the ready reference books in the Core Collection. It will be made up of one-volume, encyclopedia-style, multi-contributor works called Oxford Companions, which are designed for research.

• Oxford Scholarship Online, primarily for four-year research institutions, is a collection of 750 scholarly monographs in four concentrated subject areas: religion and theology, economics, philosophy and political science. Libraries may subscribe to the full database or any combination of modules, and new books will be added at the rate of approximately 200 every year. The titles are approved by an academic editorial board, and authors have submitted keywords and created abstracts for each chapter of every book in the collection.

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February 27, 2008
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