9 December 2025

Included in this update

Happy Holidays!
What to expect in the new year...
EPIC stats in 2025-2026

Happy Holidays!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a big Meri Kirihimete and happy holidays! I hope you all manage to find some time to relax and rejuvenate during the holiday period.

I will be on leave from Thursday 18 December and back in the office on Monday 12 January.

If you have any technical support issues during this time, please contact the relevant EPIC vendor’s technical support in the first instance. All EPIC vendor contact info can be found on the EPIC vendors page of the website.

If you need to contact EPIC during this period, please use the epic@dia.govt.nz email address in preference to emailing me directly as this email address will be monitored while I am on leave.

And, most importantly, thank you so much for all your support in 2025. I look forward to catching up in 2026!

What to expect in the new year...

I am currently in the process of receiving and assessing EPIC vendor pricing offers for the 2026-2027 EPIC subscription year (1 July 2026 – 30 June 2027).

The confirmed vendor offers to EPIC members for the new subscription year will be added to the secure section of the EPIC pricing and sub-licence agreements page of the National Library website for viewing from February 2026 onwards.

In April, I will formally seek EPIC member subscription confirmations for the 2026-2027 subscription year. The deadline for members to return their EPIC subscription confirmations for 2026-2027 will be 5pm Friday 29 May 2026.

As usual, I will provide updates via EPIC Update Newsletters throughout the process, but, please also refer to EPIC – a guide for member libraries for more information about subscribing to e-resources through EPIC.

EPIC stats in 2025-2026

Finally, (as a stats obsessed librarian) I thought it might be fun to sign off for the year with a few fun EPIC stats from the 2025-2026 subscription year:

Currently there are 120 EPIC consortium member organisations including:

61 public libraries,
36 tertiary libraries
21 special libraries,
The National Library of New Zealand, and
The Ministry of Education (who annually subscribe to a range of resources through EPIC to make freely available to all New Zealand schools through EPIC for New Zealand schools).

748 consortium e-resource offers are currently accessed through EPIC by EPIC member organisations:

732 subscriptions,
6 perpetual access offers, and
10 libraries access a pay-per-use offer.

On average, EPIC members access just over 6 consortium offers through EPIC:

This ranges from a couple of libraries that access 1 offer through to a member library that is accessing 32 consortium offers.

In 2025-2026 the average % savings (based on vendors’ standard list pricing) that EPIC members have achieved from consortium offers through EPIC is 46%:

The % savings per member library range from 5 to 70%

The total no. of different e-resources accessed by EPIC members is 218:

This is through 122 different package options from 29 contracted vendors.

Kia pai ngā hararei!

Paula Banks - EPIC Manager