Scotland's university researchers are set to benefit from Scottish Higher Education Digital Library (SHEDL), a shared digital library that will widen access to over 1,500 specialist journals and publications. JISC Collections negotiated this pilot scheme, which will be led by the Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries. Three academic publishers - Cambridge University Press, the American Chemical Society and Springer - have already signed up.
The initiative, seen to be the first of its kind in the UK, is also expected to encourage collaboration between institutions as it gives researchers access to journals on the fringes of their chosen disciplines. SHEDL is considered vital to the development of Scottish-based research, over half of which was rated internationally excellent or world-leading in last month's Research Assessment Exercise.
SHEDL has been backed by all of Scotland's higher education institutions, who hope it will support research, learning and teaching. It is also expected to stimulate research both across different disciplines and between institutions.
