On occasion, CRL negotiates favorable terms for purchase of, or subscription to, electronic resources for CRL libraries. This activity grew out of CRL’s longstanding shared collection development activities. For more information about CRL electronic resource offerings, please contact Mary Wilke, CRL Member Liaison & Outreach Services Director.

Priorities

Traditional CRL collection strengths

Reflecting the strengths of CRL legacy collections, we target primary source content, in particular news; historical archives; economic, demographic, and public opinion data; government and NGO-produced information; and international content not readily available through mainstream channels.  We endeavor to avoid electronic resources that are commonly offered by other U.S. and Canadian consortia.   

Research topics of interest

We prioritize materials and topics identified as priorities by the CRL community.

Selection method

Proposals

• Nominations throughout the year, using the Electronic Resource Nomination Form
• Proposals from CRL communities of interest, including Global Resources programs such as CIFNAL and GNARP, the World Newspaper Archive Advisory Committee, and the Undergraduate Research Working Group.
• Identification of priority resources from publishers’ offerings.
• Select collections targeted for collaborative digitization (World Newspaper Archive, American Periodicals from CRL, Law Library Microform Consortium. 

Assessment

• At the start of trial access periods, reviews are posted in CRL’s Global Resources Forum web pages, incorporating analysis of the extent of original source materials, interface functions, and licensing terms.
• Assessment comments and feedback are solicited from CRL libraries and continually added to the reviews 

Offers

• Offers are made at intervals during the year.
• Digitized CRL collections are offered through partners upon their release
• In most cases databases will be purchased or subscribed to locally by individual libraries.

Examples of recent offers

• Electronic Enlightenment (Oxford University Press)
• Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan (Adam Matthew)
• F.A.Z. (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
• World Newspaper Archive: South Asia