University of Helsinki
By Paula Mikkonen, the National Library’s licensing unit
FinELib centrally negotiates license agreements for electronic material on behalf of Finnish universities, universities of applied sciences, research institutes and public libraries. The Consortium, which focuses on the acquisition of electronic material, including scholarly e-journals, e-books and databases, operates in a rapidly changing environment. The direction and emphasis of the Consortium’s operations must therefore be reviewed on a regular basis.
The FinELib Consortium has had a strategic plan guiding its operations since 2004. The current strategy period will conclude at the end of 2015, and the following period will run until 2020.
The strategy revision process is supervised by the FinELib steering group, which comprises representatives from Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture, as well as the Consortium’s member sectors and major cooperation partners. The steering group is also working on the new strategy. FinELib’s member organisations are encouraged to express their ideas and opinions regarding the strategy throughout the revision process.
The National Library is in charge of the operations and development of FinELib according to the guidelines of the FinELib steering group. FinELib’s strategy revision coincides with that of the National Library, which enables both organisations to draw synergies from their work. FinELib’s revised strategy is scheduled to be ready in autumn 2015.