The Centre for Digital Library Research was awarded £98,990 from SHEFC's Strategic Change Grant for a project to develop a centralised Scottish electronic journals service. SAPIENS (Scottish Academic Periodicals: Implementing an Effective Networked Service) began in June 2001 and ran for two years. The project aimed to assist smaller Scottish publishers whose journals are not yet available online, by providing server space, technical support, a high-profile gateway and various value-added services, and thus removing some of the barriers to entry into the electronic environment.

More specifically, SAPIENS aimed to:

• examine the case for a centralised Scottish electronic journal service which might enable and encourage smaller publishers to make existing and new journals available in electronic form

• design and build a demonstrator service, which will deliver current journals from a representative selection of publishers via a common gateway

• develop and launch an operational service, together with a marketing strategy to ensure that it is self-sustaining within a year of the end of the project.

The project was expected to have a significant and beneficial impact on the effectiveness of academic and cultural publishing in Scotland, on the cost-effectiveness with which Scottish university libraries can provide access to Scottish journals for students, teachers and researchers in their institutions, and on the dissemination of Scottish scholarship both within higher education and beyond.

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This web site is maintained by Jake Wallis and hosted by the Centre for Digital Library Research at the University of Strathclyde.

Updated: 2 December 2004