PASCAL will open negotiations with vendors of key electronic resources for nursing in light of the vote taken by South Carolina deans and directors of nursing programs to provide funding for one year’s subscription restoration for nursing research and teaching materials.  The vote was based on a projection of the costs and benefits for restoring the package of resources previously made available through PASCAL to the state’s nursing students and faculty.  The resources licensed through this emergency funding will become available by January 2010.

The funds are made available through an appropriation to improve technology in nursing education, particularly in the area of simulation.  In the CHE request to the deans and directors, it was noted that “access to databases focused on nursing education narrowed considerably at the very time when access to the widest number of resources is critical, just as the simulation project is initiated.”

In December 2007, PASCAL announced the successful negotiation of licenses with three leading publishers of nursing research and teaching literature (EBSCO, Ovid, ProQuest). Through these licenses, PASCAL provided digital access to over 1,242 nursing and allied health journals, along with several hundred electronic books and reports.  In December 2008, a 90% reduction in funding by the General Assembly forced PASCAL to cancel many database subscriptions.  The cuts resulted in cancellation of two of the three nursing licenses (Ovid & ProQuest) and a loss of most (over 800) of the nursing and allied health titles in PASCAL’s portfolio. Libraries that chose to pick up subscriptions to the resources formerly supplied by PASCAL in order to support the state’s nursing initiative made cuts in other areas

Overall, the cuts to PASCAL dramatically reversed progress the state had made towards providing a foundation for ubiquitous access to STEM (Science, Technology and Medicine) research and teaching materials statewide

With the emergency funds provided by the nursing deans and directors, South Carolina’s nursing students and faculty will again be able to use – at least into 2011 – a robust set of research and teaching material comparable to the collection PASCAL was previously able to maintain.

PASCAL will continue to work towards restoring the stability in funding necessary to maintain ongoing annual subscriptions supplied by the Statewide Electronic Library that are so necessary for teaching and learning in our institutions of higher education.