February 1, 2008

Seventy percent of PASCAL’s Statewide Electronic Library funding is allocated to its electronic resource licensing program.* Here is analysis of the electronic resource licensing program.

• PASCAL’s annual licenses to 33 databases provide access to millions of articles and reports in over 13,000 periodicals, especially peer reviewed research journals in core academic disciplines, technical & business reports, and health sciences resources.
     
• Central Licensing is extremely cost-effective: Since its launch in 2004, PASCAL’s statewide electronic resource licensing program has brought in $7 of value for every $1 spent. As we’ve added resources, our “multiplier” has increased each year. So in FY 2007-8 every $1 is returning $8.67 in value. To take one example, we estimate that it would cost Francis Marion University at least $230,000 annually to replace the $27,000 PASCAL is spending for electronic licensing on its behalf. These are annual expenditures, on which South Carolina’s 300,000 students have come to rely on.
        
• These expenditures affect institutions dramatically! PASCAL levels the playing field for smaller and mid-sized academic institutions. Northeastern Technical College students, for example have had their base periodical resources increase by a factor of 150!
          
• Licensing core materials such as Science, Nature, or LexisNexis Academic frees institutional funds at research institutions to license sophisticated research materials and thus supports the state’s drive for economic excellence in fields such as engineering and medicine. For example, when PASCAL licensed LexisNexis, Clemson was able to license Inspec, a major engineering database that had previously been out of reach. PASCAL supports licensing for the three research institutions to the tune of $343,612, worth $2.9 million in value. This unlocks library funds to pursue excellence.
  
  
• Thanks to PASCAL’s electronic resource licensing program, South Carolina’s nursing education programs now have one of the most competitive packages of information resources in the nation!

Everyone wins:

Students and faculty have more of the tools they need to learn and compete in the global knowledge economy;

State resources are leveraged to the maximum extent through collaboration;

Our institutions become better partners in economic development.

PASCAL’s electronic resources represent an extremely cost-effective investment!

*The other 30 percent supports the rapid delivery program (PASCAL Delivers).