In this issue we have a message from Michele McLouglin from the school sector, report on libraries benefiting from subscription savings, announce the release of a REOI, and provide product enhancement updates from EBSCO, Forward Learning and ProQuest.

Making e-resources more affordable for schools

Schools have responded positively to ERA, with 418 School Libraries currently subscribing to World Book Online alone.  A few School Libraries are subscribing to other products, however price is presently inhibiting many School Libraries from subscribing to electronic resources. To alleviate the cost, for all products available through ERA, including World Book, more School Libraries need to come onboard with this innovative initiative.

At the ERA Members Forum held in May 2008 vendors clearly demonstrated that they will respond to the feedback from Libraries, especially School Libraries. So if the product you want isn’t delivering or isn’t available, get in touch with ERA, become an active player. Take up the challenge; our students deserve to have access to reliable, informative information.

Remember, the more School Libraries that join ERA, the more affordable and accessible this information will become for all Australian students.

Michele McLoughlin, ERA Executive Committee - Schools

Libraries benefit from subscription savings through ERA

The new ERA subscription cycle commenced on 1 July. 

A number of libraries have been able to benefit from savings in their subscriptions through increased level of participation in ERA.   These include:

• School libraries with their subscriptions to World Book; and
• NSLA libraries with all nine members now subscribing to Oxford Reference Online Premium.

Lets continue to work together to acheive better outcomes.

REOI has been released

A key priority for the ERA Executive Committee is the selection and establishment of the 2009 ERA Product Panel.  

The National Library has now issued a Request for Expression of Interest (REOI) and submissions are being sought in the areas of:

• Australian News & Business Information;
• General Reference;
• Health Information;
• Science & Technology;
• Humanities & Social Sciences; and/ or
• Legal Information.

Documentation is available for download from http://www.nla.gov.au/tenders/.

Article in HLA News

You may be interested in an ERA artilce that appeared in the June/ July issue of the HLA News http://www.alia.org.au/groups/healthnat/hla/.

EBSCOhost 2.0 is here!

Its brand new look and feel, based on extensive user testing and feedback, provides you with the most powerful, clean and intuitive interface available. This is the first redesign of the EBSCOhost interface since 2002, and its functionality incorporates the latest technological advances.

We have created a wide range of tools and information to streamline your transition to the new design:

• An overview of EBSCOhost 2.0 is provided in the Flash demonstration here.
• The EBSCOhost 2.0 Support Center is available here.
• Our marketing web site also features new EBSCOhost 2.0 web pages, where you can learn more about its key features, here.

We hope that you and your users enjoy the clean new design of EBSCOhost 2.0, and we look forward to your feedback.
 

Discover - Forward Learning

Forward Learning / World Book is delighted to announce the release of World Book Discover to all of its ERA customers.

World Book Discover launched in July, 2008 is specifically designed for adult migrants, ESL students and older students with reading difficulties.

Find out more here.

ProQuest Search Widget

ProQuest has launched a free search widget for products on its ProQuest® platform. Available now, the ProQuest Search Widget - a portable search box - allows instant searching of most ProQuest platform databases on any page of a library or university web site. This furthers ProQuest's efforts to help libraries market their collections - increasing exposure and facilitating access - by enabling them to add the search feature right into users' workflow.

The ProQuest Search Widget:

• allows anybody to create a simple customized search box that supports keyword-search-and-go research;
• includes a ProQuest logo -- so that users know what they're searching;
• can be placed on any and every web page where libraries want to provide direct access to ProQuest platform databases; and
• its flexible "plug and play" design lets libraries set their own search parameters, varying them with the context.

Please go to www.proquest.co.uk for further information.