Thirty-seven academic libraries from BCR's six member states are seeing big savings on their subscriptions to Britannica Online, the electronic version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the World Wide Web. The libraries are the first to sign up to participate in BCR's new Britannica Online Group Purchase program. (Unfortunately, the consortium agreement with Britannica Advanced Publishing, Inc. currently is limited to post-secondary academic institutions.)

Libraries participating in the BCR consortia pay only 53-cents per student per year for access to Britannica Online, about half what the average academic institution would pay under an individual subscription. Individual library's savings vary from $1,218 to $2,568 for the year, a total savings for the group of $67,946.58.

It's not too late to join the group purchase and obtain the same savings for your library. For information or to subscribe, contact Jim Hensinger at BCR's Aurora office (303) 751-6277 or
(800) 397-1552 or send an e-mail message to . Subscriptions will be prorated according to when your library signs up. A single payment for the year (based on the calendar year starting January 1 ) is all that is needed.

Libraries already subscribing to Britannica Online at a higher rate can have their subscriptions transferred to the BCR consortia, and BCR will refund the prorated portion already paid.

Hensinger has set up a listserv, bcr-brit, on BCR's SUN Internet server to communicate directly with libraries participating in the Britannica Online program. To subscribe to bcr-brit send the e-mail message subscribe bcr-brit to majordomo@bcr.org. To post a message to the listserv, send the message to bcr-brit@bcr.org.