Birmingham, Ala., – Sept. 18, 2009 –EBSCO and a number of library consortia are working together to help consortia members reduce the cost and burden of processing e-journal package renewals by using EBSCO’s  RapidRenewal® service, available via EBSCONET®. As libraries face the most dramatic budget conditions in history, they are often losing staff necessary to handle administrative tasks. EBSCO's RapidRenewal, an online tool for managing the renewal of licensed e-journal collections, is designed to ease the administrative burdens associated with renewing e-journal packages. By partnering with consortia, EBSCO is able to provide an e-package renewal tool to more customers for managing contract data at a consortial level.

Library consortia have been able to negotiate large content deals successfully with major publishers and offer membership terms and conditions that are unique to their respective consortium. RapidRenewal, developed in cooperation with many of the major STM publishers, enables libraries to process these licensed deals in a more efficient manner by incorporating consortial contract terms and limitations, title detail and custom pricing into a single online interface. “Our members are extremely busy and are always looking for ways to streamline the serials renewal process," said Ed McBride, chief of member engagement at Lyrasis. "We are happy to provide them with a tool like EBSCO’s RapidRenewal that can help them do just that.”

Executive Director of SCELC Rick Burke said: “Many of our libraries are EBSCO subscription service clients. Consequently, we chose to promote to our member libraries the option to utilize EBSCO’s RapidRenewal services. Our offer bundles discount options that reduce our members’ operating cost for processing and maintaining their e-journal packages.”

The RapidRenewal interface provides a single portal for processing the renewal of multiple packages while eliminating the cumbersome exchange of spreadsheets, e-mail and other communication. The library can modify and approve package title lists as the system enforces the terms of the consortial contract and ensures that renewals are handled correctly each year. Authority levels allow renewals to be approved at the consortial or library level, depending on the preferred process of the consortium or publisher.

As a result of using RapidRenewal, libraries within a consortium can take advantage of the negotiated terms and conditions, easily renew their collections according to their contract terms, and have the title-by-title analysis that is often needed in today’s shrinking budget environment. "Attempting to identify creative ways in reducing technical services administrative costs while also trying to reduce workloads can be a difficult task, said Anne E. McKee, MLS, program officer for resource sharing at GWLA. "EBSCO’s Rapid Renewal system is a well-designed solution that will help meet both of those needs in e-journal renewal processing.  GWLA is pleased to work with EBSCO in this effort.”

“We are looking forward to working with consortia in providing their EBSCO members with a tool that reduces the time spent processing package renewals from weeks to a few hours in many cases," said Rebecca Day, manager of e-resources development at EBSCO.  "Our libraries that are using RapidRenewal have indicated the tool allows them to have better control and more efficient renewals of e-packages. We are delighted to be able to offer a tool that has been proven to reduce the library’s workload, particularly given current staffing and budget situations in many libraries.”

About EBSCO:

EBSCO is the world’s premier full-service provider of information, offering a portfolio of services that spans the realm of print and electronic subscription access and management, research databases and more. The company’s e-resource renewal and management tools help librarians accomplish in hours what once took weeks. For more information, please visit www.ebsco.com.