Membership
1. General membership
Membership of NEREUS is key to the success of providing a critical mass of research collections on economics across Europe. Prospective members are either academic libraries or key information providers in the area of economics in Europe with resources of excellence to offer the economics academic or student. NEREUS members have the common vision of primarily aiming to increase the accessibility to quality information, unlocking resources which have to date been difficult to access, and delivering that information in a targeted and user-friendly way to their library users both nationally and abroad. As membership of NEREUS grows, the member libraries' information stock will be increased, thus gaining for all member users one-stop access to research materials otherwise not easily available. NEREUS will aim to function as a tool to disseminate the results of research more widely across Europe by linking institutional repositories, or the like, with the NEREUS system, providing more quality information from a number of different countries. This will be of value both to research itself and to enhancing the profile of the university and researcher in the field of economics on a more global level. With this in mind, the NEREUS consortium believes that the partners' visibility as key information providers in this field in Europe will thereby be maintained and promoted.
Established partnerships have been proven to stimulate the accessibility and transfer of knowledge and expertise between peers. This fact will be promoted by the NEREUS network where problems, innovative ideas, and solutions can give rise to stimulus for action and further development in our own libraries through interaction by members. Strong partnerships between actors of similar standing and with similar goals are ideal for the development of collaborative projects in a common field, as well as a good basis for exerting pressure in certain areas for the benefit of library services and their users. This can be realized through the exchange of information at NEREUS project meetings, in working groups set up by NEREUS members on issues such as copyright, information quality, and publishing in order to address common issues of concern, and in the form of joint applications for international funding for larger projects. The NEREUS network of information professionals in the area of economics is seen by the consortium as a strong asset for the strategic development of the economics libraries for years to come.
The NEREUS network will also be looking towards the cost-effectiveness of its libraries and their maintenance for further sustainability whereby members and their libraries can eventually share cost-controlling devices for collection purchase, maintenance and development. This could include, for example, an inventory of information resources in all partner libraries in order to see where the consortium can save costs by sharing resources more effectively. Business models will also be investigated for use in our library systems and services for revenue-building with regard to NEREUS and beyond in the future in order to maintain our quality and innovative library services.
1.1 Benefits
A number of benefits are avaialble to Nereus members. For more information, click here.
As an additional plus for core members and their academic resource collections, all Nereus core partners will receive material benefits for being part of the network:
- The London School of Economics has agreed to offer IBSS Online, the most comprehensive international journal article bibliography in the social sciences, covering a very large number of countries and languages, free to all partners, instead of the standard ca. 2200 euro annual fee.
- Tilburg University will offer long-standing experience and technical support with the goal to promote OAI and the integration of library information systems for improved information exchange and dissemination.
- The German National Library of Economics will combine its EconBiz portal with those links of the NEREUS partners to become a key portal for virtual references for economics in Europe through NEREUS.
- The German National Library of Economics will offer discounted document delivery service from its library spanning major German, Austrian and Swiss collections, and others
Other material benefits are in the process of being unlocked by NEREUS partners.
2. Core membership
2.1 Defining who
Core members form the NEREUS Project Steering Committee. They are the key decision-makers and driving forces behind the NEREUS project. Prospective core members are libraries with highly acclaimed collections of either great breadth and depth or of particular significance and uniqueness, usually in top-rate research institutions in the area of economics. Each core member thereby has a defining voice and role in the establishment and development of the world-class digital library for economics portal and network. They have an influence on policy, management and collection development, i.e. the project's research and development priorities, its content and quality, service provision and tools as well as acting as a deciding body on the acceptance of new members to the project. In addition, they will have an equal say in decision-making regarding the NEREUS project financing. Core members will play leading roles in the initiation and decisions on the development of advocacy proposals for international funding. Core members will thus form a separate exclusive network of key information professionals in the economics field where communication and access to knowledge will be promoted with further research and development in mind.
Core members contribute financially to the general administration of the project with a current annual contribution fee for core membership of 5,000 euros to cover project management, dissemination and other administrative costs.
To conclude, the Steering Committee with its core members is the driving force behind the success of NEREUS by contributing to the financial support to enable the development of the project, by giving direction, monitoring the quality of its content and actively participating in efforts relating to the project's development with the improvement of European library services in mind.
Criteria for Core Membership selection summarized
2.2 Obligations of core members
- To pay the subscription
- To be actively involved in the policy development, management and collection development of Nereus
- To invest time in advocacy efforts
- To evaluate the applications of new members
- To provide reciprocal access to resources to all members, subject to copyright restriction
- To cover all costs of providing their own content
- To present their metadata according to the required standards
2.3 Evaluation of potential core members
Potential core members are asked to provide a summary of the resources they propose to bring to Nereus, according to the above criteria. This would include the description of collections of special or regional interest. The committee of core members will evaluate responses and issue invitations to join.
2.4 Subscription fee
The annual subscription fee is 5,000 euros for core members, starting April of each calendar year. Members also commit 0.25 staff time to Nereus activities.
3. Partnerships
In addition to core and contributing members, NEREUS is seeking to establish mutually beneficial partnerships with other organisations, agencies, and companies - both commercial and not-for-profit - whose content and services can complement those of NEREUS. TheSteering Committee willevaluate any approachesfromsuch organisations and will also issue invitations to potential partners.
If you wish to apply for membership, either as a core or contributing member, or as a NEREUS partner, we are interested in hearing from you. Please contact:
Vanessa Proudman
NEREUS Project Manager
Library, Tilburg University
P.O. Box 90153
NL - 5000 LE TILBURG
Tel: +31 - 13 - 466 2314
Fax: +31 -13 - 466 3370
Email: v.m.proudman@uvt.nl
Web: http://www.nereus4economics.info
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