Massachusetts Awards Statewide Online Database Contracts to Three Vendors

From the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) and the Massachusetts Library System (MLS):

The MBLC [has] awarded contracts to Gale Cengage, Inc., ProQuest, Inc. and Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. for statewide online magazine, newspaper, e-reference and encyclopedia databases to begin on July 1, 2012.
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Among the resources are 22 periodical, biographical, e-reference and news databases offering an array of subjects covering general and scholarly interest, biographies, science, consumer health and nursing and allied health, reader’s advisory, literature and literary criticism, history, K-12 interest resources and news including full-text of The New York Times back to 1985 and 50 Gale Virtual Reference library titles. ProQuest will be providing the full-text of The Boston Globe dating back to 1985. Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Online K-12 and Public Library Editions will be available with Read Aloud features. Also included in the package are the Britannica Spanish Reference Center, World Data Analyst, and Annals of America. All products are available for PC, mobile and tablet devices.
The more than 1700 school, public, and academic libraries across the state also benefit from these resources. Individual libraries would pay on the average of $50,000 a year to license these resources on their own. “Free access to the resources has been a lifesaver. We could never afford such comprehensive digital resources,” said one librarian. The resources are funded jointly by the MBLC and MLS with state funding and federal support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the MBLC.

via the Massachusetts COMM-Pass Database we’ve learned that the total contract (all three vendors) is for an estimated value $10,786,215.00.
Here’s a list of the databases that will be available.
See Also: “Request for Responses for Statewide Electronic Online Content”
What did the MBLC want in terms of databases? These documents were posted by the MBLC on September 22, 2011 and October 14, 2011.

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Awards, Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Data Files, Funding, Gale, Libraries, News, Public Libraries, Resources