Information Note to libraries interested in joining the e-library system

An e-library system will be built under a project titled “Collection Sharing and Information Discovery System (CSIDS) with Enriched Digital Content” and sponsored by the Quality Education Support Scheme (QESS) of the Education Bureau (EDB) (Project No.:T01/QESS/2013).

The project will last for three years and will commence in January 2014.  The project and the e-library system will be managed by The Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) (as principal grantee), the Caritas Institute of Higher Education (CIHE), Chu Hai College of Higher Education (CHCHE), Hong Kong Shue Yan University (HKSYU) and Tung Wah College (TWC).  Libraries interested in joining the e-library system may wish to note the following requirements:

1. Non-profit-making education institutes offering full-time locally-accredited self-financing sub-degree and/or bachelor degree (including top-up degree) programmes are welcome to join the e-library system. Sample investment costs and running costs can be provided upon request to be used in confidence.

2. The new institute shall have to follow the established practice in collection building and other service collaboration polices.  Any suggestions for changing the practice and policies should be presented to the incumbent institutes for consideration and endorsement.

3. The joining of the new institute shall not bring additional costs to, or affect the planned or existing level of service of, the incumbent institutes.  Any additional costs or variation of the running costs of the CSIDS should be presented to the incumbent institutes for consideration and endorsement.

4. The new institute shall secure all funding required for migrating their ILS if necessary, integrating to the CSIDS, upgrading the hardware if necessary, and making ready their user database and IT environment and any other costs for using the CSIDS.

5. The new institute shall share the running cost of the System according to the established formula. Any suggestions for changing the formula should be presented to the incumbent institutes for consideration and endorsement.

6. The new institute shall share the cost for future eBook purchases and the workload involved in eBook collection building and processing.  The annual library budget to be spent on eBook and the library staffing should be presented to the incumbent institutes for consideration.

7. For sharing of print collections, the new institute should at least house 20,000 library print titles or 12 print titles per FTE student, whichever is higher, so as to maintain a reasonable level of reciprocal borrowing under the interlibrary loan. This is needed for funding accountability as incumbent institutes are all self-financing institutes.

8. For sharing of the eBook collection, a new institute has to be aware of the fact that it can only share and read newly purchased eBooks after they have joined the Project due to the license restriction set by the eBook vendors and will not be able to read the eBooks purchased before.  The new institute shall decide whether their available funds should be spent on new releases of eBook publications or on gaining access to an eBook collection of the incumbent institutes purchased in previous years.

9. To facilitate the possible sharing of the existing eBook Collection by future new institutes, the incumbent participating institutes shall try their best to negotiate with eBook vendors for a formula for the calculation of additional charges to be imposed as a result of the additional use of the eBooks, wherever possible. It is noted that the availability of the formula is subject to the agreement of individual eBook vendors.



September 2013