By James Speed Hensinger

BCR member libraries now have access to one of the largest online reference services available LEXIS-NEXIS Academic UNIVERSE through a new BCR discount program.

Academic UNIVERSE is designed specifically for academic libraries. Developed by LEXIS-NEXIS and Congressional Information Service Inc. (CIS), a LEXIS- NEXIS subsidiary, Academic UNIVERSE is a subset of the most popular files in the LEXIS-NEXIS database collection. It is a huge resource of information with full-text records. It is being expanded with more LEXIS-NEXIS databases added monthly.

Academic UNIVERSE currently has 5,718 database titles. To learn the specific sources you can access, go to the CIS web site (). Besides a list of the available titles (which include newsletters; news sources in English, French, Italian and German; magazines; trade journals; wire services and broadcast transcripts; business directories; SEC documents; corporate profiles; statutes; federal and state case law), you will also find links describing coverage, currency and publisher of each database.

Access to Academic UNIVERSE is controlled by IP number filtering, making it available to every faculty member and student on a campus. And library staff using Academic UNIVERSE under the BCR program has full access to the entire LEXIS-NEXIS service. This access to the full LEXIS-NEXIS service will be made via user names and passwords.

The actual price for this new BCR product will not be set until after May 15. We expect the price to be well under $1.90 per FTE. The final price for the 12-month group subscription will be based on the total volume of FTEs in orders received by May 15.

So please make your commitment as soon as possible. To create the volume of FTEs needed to drive the price down, your participation is needed now. Enroll by filling out the online form on BCR's web site. A $50 minimum annual subscription is required.

If your library, however, is unable to get approval to sign up for this new service before the May 15 date, you are still able to subscribe. BCR's group subscription year is June 1 through May 31. The fee for libraries signing up for Academic UNIVERSE later in the group-subscription year will be rounded up to the next whole month and whole dollar.

Libraries participating in this group purchase will receive information about Academic UNIVERSE through BCR-LEXNEX listserv. Subscribers to this new BCR service are enrolled automatically in the listserv. Or you can join by sending the message subscribe bcr-lexnex to or enroll using BCR's web page. Also watch for information about Academic UNIVERSE in future is sues of Action for Libraries.

To set up a free demonstration of LEXIS-NEXIS Academic UNIVERSE, contact BCR's Deb Pruitt at dpruitt@bcr.org. If you have questions about this new service, go to the online FAQ at or contact Jim Hensinger () at BCR's Aurora (Colorado) office.

(Academic UNIVERSE is available to academic libraries only. The service is not available to law-school libraries or public, corporate, government or school libraries.)