RCLS Group Database Licensing Discounts
The following products are currently part of the RCLS Group Licensing Program (links lead to vendor product pages). RCLS only makes an effort to coordinate licensing if vendors can offer a discount to groups of our libraries beyond what they would offer to an individual library.
The following products are currently being trialed as part of the RCLS Group Licensing Program. Links with login names and passwords are sent out via the "allrcls" mailing list.
Pricing Information
RCLS does not publicly publish the product quotes we receive; we treat those quotes as confidential and only distribute the pricing information to member library directors in written memo format.
Other Database Group Discount Cooperatives
The goal of the RCLS Database Group Licensing program is to leverage the buying power of multiple member libraries in order to secure volume discount pricing. Other organizations in the region and the state offer similar programs, and work with larger numbers of libraries to secure volume discounts. RCLS will not include any database products offered by those organizations unless the vendor specifically indicates that they could offer us even steeper discounts or a unique package of products. To view database products offered by these organizations, follow the listed links:
The ability of RCLS and our Central Library (Newburgh Free Library) to offer system-wide database licenses is strictly a function of State funding for Public Library Systems in New York. That funding has not increased in several years, placing a moratorium on our ability to license any new products on a system-wide level. Please do not waste time trying to market to us on that basis.
Inclusion of database products in the RCLS Group Discount licensing program is solely based on recommendations made by member library staff. The appropriate first step to get included in this program is to provide product awareness materials--brochures, announcements, press releases, etc.--directly to our member libraries; or, your promotional emails can be sent to jkuntz@rcls.org for forwarding to our member libraries. Paper material can also be sent to RCLS for redistribution via our delivery service to all member libraries. Please ship enough copies (47) to RCLS to cover all our member libraries.
If you market your products directly to one of our member libraries, please keep in mind that your product may already be a part of this RCLS program or could be considered for the program in the future. Therefore we would appreciate that any licensing agreements you make individually with our member libraries include an option to redefine the licensing period and pro-rate invoicing to coincide with our program's DEC-DEC or JAN-JAN annual contracts, should those products ever be a part of our program. We have not yet encountered a vendor that was not willing to do this.
All products offered via the RCLS Database Group Discount program must offer a feature that would provide usage statistics. In most cases, those statistics are available at the license-holder level, i.e. a system-wide license would produce only system-wide statistics; a single-group license would include statistics for the group as a whole; and individual library licenses would produce library-specific statistics. Member libraries may contact Jerry Kuntz at RCLS to check the availability of library-specific usage statistics.
Member Library Database Access Links