Universities save £1.2m through digital archives group purchasing scheme
The community model of the scheme means the more each individual institution spends, the greater the group savings for members.
Jisc's digital archival collections group purchasing scheme (DAC GPS) has saved universities more than £1.2million since it was first launched in 2017. Amid increasingly tighter budgets across the UK HE sector, the scheme has saved institutions more than £200,000 in the last two years alone.
Offering members an automatic 20% discount on all products available through the scheme, DAC GPS is a more efficient and transparent approach to the acquisition of digital archival collections, negating the need for universities to engage in lengthy negotiations.
The scheme helps institutions reduce the cost of buying digital collections and archives from publishers by using a community-based model, meaning the more members buy from each publisher, the greater the savings across that publisher's products.
Running from November to July annually, different publishers make their collections available each year. Returning from last year’s scheme De Gruyter, East View, Irish Newspaper Archives, JSTOR, Microform and ProQuest offer over 40 products including archival e-books, British civil defence 1914-1989, disability in the modern world, Irish radical newspapers, struggle for freedom Southern Africa, and treasury of linguistic maps.
In 2025 the scheme introduces the Social History Archive to the UK HE sector.
Launched in April 2024, the Social History Archive offers products to UK higher education for the first time, therefore expanding the content previously available to members though the group purchasing scheme. Products include Kindertransport and the British Newspaper Archive.
Karen Colbron, subject matter expert digital collections at Jisc, says:
“The automatic 20% discount, and collective community benefit of pricing dropping further based on sales across all HE members, lies at the heart of the group purchasing scheme, providing better value content for use in learning, teaching and research.
“Members of the scheme help each other drive down the cost - the more they individually buy, the deeper the discount for all who participate – helping to build relationships across the sector and drive benefit from collaborative efficiencies.”