New electronic resources in Australia
Australians everywhere will benefit from a new library consortium called Electronic Resources Australia (ERA).
The recently formed consortium offers libraries an opportunity to provide free public access to quality online information in the areas of health, general reference, news and business.
The consortium is a response to recommendation 9 of the 2003 Senate report on Libraries in the Online Environment that highlighted the public need to have greater and coordinated access to full text electronic resources.
Following the Senate report Australian libraries identified the areas of greatest information need. This led to the panel of products offered today through ERA.
Jan Fullerton AO, director-general National Library, said in this information-driven world ERA would help position Australian libraries to better support communities, education and business.
Anyone who is a member of an Australian library that subscribes to one or more of the nine products on the panel will be able to access the content for free at their chosen location.
It is anticipated that the first library subscriptions with EBSCO Publishing, Forward Learning Pty Ltd (World Book), Oxford University Press, ProQuest-CSA and Thomson Gale will commence in October 2007.
