CARE appoints negotiators for Elsevier contract

["Benedetta Alosi" <alosib@unime.it>]

Of possible interest to this list.

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PRESS RELEASE

The procedure to select a negotiator for the renewal of the 
national contract for access to Elsevier scientific publications 
on behalf of universities and the largest research bodies in 
Italy has just drawn to a conclusion.

The selection process, promoted by the CARE group (Coordination 
Group for the purchase of Electronic Resources), concluded that 
the bid put forward by the temporary Joint Enterprise between 
E.S. Burioni <http://www.burioni.it/> and the English agency 
Content Complete <http://www.contentcomplete.com/> was attractive 
in both financial and technical terms.

The procedure adopted for the selection was preceded by a market 
survey carried out by CARE in which the main international 
mailing lists were asked to publicize the ongoing search for 
experts to negotiate the purchase of licences for access to 
electronic resources.

On the basis of the results of the survey and of a detailed 
tender, four candidates, three foreign and one Italian, were 
invited to take part.

The winning candidate was selected based on the technical and 
financial bid presented by an external committee composed of: 
Dott. Guido Badalamenti, Dott.ssa Alessandra Bezzi, Prof. Romano 
Bizzarri, Prof. Antonio Cantore, Prof. Giuseppe Catalano 
(Chairman), Dott. Vincenzo Del Core (Secretary)

The formal appointment of the negotiating team made up of two 
Directors of Content Complete, Paul Harwood and Albert Prior, 
together with Luca Burioni of E.S. Burioni Ricerche 
Bibliografiche, will take place shortly.

Content Complete is most well-known for its negotiations 
undertaken on behalf of English Universities under the project 
NESLI2 (National Electronic Licensing Initiative for Higher and 
Further Education) sponsored by JISC.

Burioni has been involved in negotiations as consultant for the 
CIPE consortium since 1999 and more recently for Ciber, Cilea and 
Cipe in major interconsortia negotiations with international 
publishers, including Blackwell, Elsevier and Kluwer.

The experience of Content Complete on the international scene 
combined with Luca Burioni's indepth knowledge of both the 
Italian market and the Elsevier contract provides assurance of 
expertise as well as guaranteeing a strategically effective 
outcome to a national negotiations process that presents 
significant complexities due to: the number of institutions 
involved, the value of the contract and the importance of the 
publisher.

The institutional framework provided by the Italian Conference of 
Rectors (CRUI), within which CARE operates, together with the 
opportunity for Italian institutions to go to a negotiating table 
at a national level, represent an unprecedented means by which to 
negotiate the purchase of electronic resources in the face of the 
abovementioned complexities.  In addition, they make a 
significant step forward in the spirit of cooperation.

Finally, CARE intends to undertake a second market survey in 
order to identify other institutions, firms and agencies 
interested in carrying out national negotiations with other 
important international scholarly publishers.  The aim of this is 
to set up a register that will be regularly updated.

Benedetta Alosi on behalf of CARE

Benedetta Alosi
University of Messina
mail: alosib@unime.it