Benefits
Electronic Resources Australia offers significant potential benefits for Australians and their libraries.
These are:
- Australians across all rural, regional and urban areas, all social groups and diverse community organisations could have access to quality electronic resources through all types of libraries.
- Australians would benefit through access to information that supports business, vocational, government, educational and community activities.
- A national licence would be a very tangible step towards overcoming the isolation experienced daily by those living in rural and remote regions of Australia by facilitating their access to reliable and readily available information sources.
- Significant business opportunities and economies of scale would be offered to publishers and suppliers of Australian online resources through access to national markets.
- The bargaining position of libraries would be strengthened by negotiating as a consortium, offering vendors economies of scale and single-point purchasing. Subscriptions to their electronic resources would become more affordable for libraries, and this benefit would flow on to their users in improved services.
- The broader Australian community would become more aware of the benefits of electronic resources and so make more effective and profitable use of them.
- Libraries would acquire a higher profile at all levels of government.
The ERA initiative opens the way to producing a framework for the creation of licences across different library sectors that satisfy the needs of libraries, consumers and vendors.
It will facilitate the creation of mutually effective agreements between all interested parties with regard to costs, access principles, authentication and performance measurements. However it is only with the cooperation of us all that the full benefits of ERA will be fully realised.
By working together Australian libraries can achieve greater outcomes for our customers; you too can be a part of history when you put your support behind this project.

