Procurement regulations put in place by the UK government require that the University purchases books under the terms of a tender agreement. This provides us with a number of benefits:
Favourable discounts
Book preparation for the Library (e.g. barcodes, stiffening for paperbacks)
Choice of e-book suppliers and platforms without platform fees
Access to foreign and specialist book suppliers
Compliance under EU procurement directives
The Library at Queen's is part of the North Western Universities Purchasing Consortium, a consortium of UK university libraries, and purchases books under the terms of the Joint Academic Consortia agreement which covers universities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This enables us to obtain the best possible terms for library book supply.
Please note book preparation and bulk delivery mean that delivery timelines for library suppliers meeting the terms of the consortia agreement are typically longer than would be the case for an individual purchasing from a book supplier such as Blackwell’s or Amazon. Library suppliers working within the consortia agreement are usually able to deliver books fully prepared to the Library within 10 to 14 days of the receipt of our order.
