At EPIC we receive quite a few suggestions from schools about adding e-resources to the current collection. We welcome these suggestions and feedback. However, this is a good opportunity to explain how EPIC works…and why we are unable to immediately add new products for New Zealand schools.
EPIC is a purchasing consortium involving over 160 New Zealand libraries as well as the Ministry of Education on behalf of all New Zealand schools. EPIC negotiates consortium-licensing agreements with electronic resource vendors on behalf of these libraries. The member libraries then choose packages of these resources to subscribe to annually through EPIC. This provides the member libraries with significantly better pricing per product than they would be able to negotiate individually.
The Ministry of Education’s subscription to the EPIC resources on behalf of New Zealand schools works the same way as New Zealand libraries. Each year EPIC offers the Ministry of Education subscription and pricing options on packages of e-resources. The Ministry of Education then makes a decision based on what products are on offer, what their budget will allow and how well the existing products are being used.
We know that a lot of exciting new e-resource products have recently been released and we would love to offer them to New Zealand schools through EPIC. For this reason, we will be working with the Ministry of Education to review the current EPIC resources and assess new resources to find the best possible fit that we are able to negotiate for New Zealand schools.
So, watch this space…we may be calling on your help very soon to trial some products…
Cheers
Senga White
Schools' Representative
EPIC Governance Group
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