SANLiC

Name

SANLiC

Legal name

South African National Library and Information Consortium (RF) NPC

Website

https://sanlic.ac.za

Company type

Private

Founded year

1999

Operating status

Operating

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Academic Library Consortium Services

NAICS

Newspaper, Periodical, Book, and Directory Publishers (5131), All Other Publishers (513199)

SIC

Services-Membership Organizations (8600), Miscellaneous Publishing (2741)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYMPAJABAK

Scholarly Societies & Conference Proceedings Publishing

Media, Entertainment & Sports/Publishing (Books, News, Magazines)/Educational & Academic Publishing (Textbooks, Scholarly, STM)

SECONDARYEDAGAFAJ

Open Access Scholarly Journals & Monographs

Education/Educational Publishing & Learning Content/Academic & Scholarly Publishing (Journals, Monographs)

SECONDARYEDAGAFAI

Interdisciplinary & Multidisciplinary Scholarly Publishing

Education/Educational Publishing & Learning Content/Academic & Scholarly Publishing (Journals, Monographs)

Keywords

• Collective licensing consortium
• Scholarly information access
• Read and publish agreements
• Open access publishing
• Academic library consortium

Headquarters

HQ city

Cape Town

HQ country

South Africa

HQ region

Africa

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Membership fees: Members and beneficiary institutions are charged an annual, formula-based membership fee. This is a primary source of income for SANLiC as a non-profit organization.
2. Service fees: An annual service fee is charged for each agreement member institutions benefit from. This covers the cost of negotiated publisher agreements and consortium management.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

SANLiC negotiates and manages collective Read & Publish (transformational) license agreements with more than 50 academic publishers on behalf of its 37+ member and 3 beneficiary research and academic institutions in Southern Africa. Members gain read access to digital scholarly journals while affiliated researchers can publish open access without paying article processing charges. Supporting services include the ConsortiaManager workflow tool and standardised model agreement templates.

Product overview

SANLiC is a non-profit consortium (South African National Library and Information Consortium) that facilitates affordable access to scholarly electronic information for public higher education and research institutions. The organization does not offer a unified software product but rather provides a portfolio of services centered around Read & Publish (transformational) agreements negotiated with over 50 academic publishers including American Chemical Society, American Institute of Physics, ACM, Cambridge University Press, Emerald, IOP Science, Oxford University Press, Royal Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, SAGE, ScienceDirect (Elsevier), Springer, Taylor & Francis, The Company of Biologists, and Wiley. The core offering consists of negotiating collective license agreements that enable member institutions to access digital subscriptions while enabling affiliated researchers to publish open access without author-facing charges. Supporting services include ConsortiaManager for workflow management, standardized model contracts (Model Consortium Agreement and Institutional License), and the SANLiC Product Offer Template for evaluating publisher submissions. SANLiC also publishes annual reports and hosts biennial member conferences for the South African e-resource librarian community.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Read & Publish Agreements Collectively negotiated Read & Publish (transformational) agreements that give member institutions read access to paywalled scholarly journal content while allowing affiliated researchers to publish open access in hybrid journals without paying article processing charges (APCs). Available to South African public higher education institutions, statutory research councils, and beneficiary institutions in Botswana and Namibia.
• SANLiC Model Consortium Agreement Standardised model consortium agreement template that combines international best practice with local legal requirements, used to govern SANLiC's relationships with publishers and aggregators.
• SANLiC Institutional License Template Model institutional license template used between SANLiC and its member institutions to standardise terms and conditions for access to electronic resources.
• SANLiC Publisher Product Offer Template Standardised template that publishers complete and submit when approaching SANLiC with product offers, enabling consistent evaluation of publisher proposals by the consortium.

Quantifiable outcome

• 882 subscriptions negotiated for member institutions in 2021
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers14 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

18 partnerships are on record, tiered core and flagship.

• American Chemical Society (ACS)coreTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2026ACS agreement renewed for 2026-2028. Includes read access to 73 hybrid and 19 fully OA journals, with unlimited OA publishing in ACS hybrid journals. Participating institutions include University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, and 17 others.
• American Institute of Physics (AIP)coreTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2025Three-year R&P agreement (2025-2027) with American Institute of Physics. AIP fully open (gold open access) journals are not included as they are already open.
• Taylor & FrancisflagshipTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2024SANLiC signed a groundbreaking three-year transformational Read & Publish agreement with Taylor & Francis (2024-2026). Institutions have read access to nearly 2,000 journals and authors can publish open access without paying APCs. Article cap for 2026 is 1,380 articles.
• Royal Society of ChemistrycoreTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2024Four-year R&P agreement (2024-2027) with Royal Society of Chemistry. Authors can publish open access in any RSC journal without paying APCs.
• Oxford University Press (OUP)flagshipTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2023SANLiC signed a transformational agreement with OUP (2023-2025) providing participating institutions read access to 370+ journal titles and authors can publish in hybrid journals without paying APCs.
• Elsevier (ScienceDirect)flagshipTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2023SANLiC signed its first transformational agreement with Elsevier in February 2023. Institutions access over 2,000 journals in the Freedom Collection and authors can publish open access without APCs.
• WileyflagshipTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2022SANLiC signed an open access agreement with Wiley in March 2022, renewed for 2026-2029. Institutions have access to 1,400+ journal titles and authors can publish OA without APCs.
• ICOLC (International Coalition of Library Consortia)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSANLiC is an active member of ICOLC, an informal group of approximately 200 library consortia from around the world. This membership provides networking, knowledge sharing, and benchmarking opportunities for SANLiC and its members.
• COUNTERcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSANLiC is an active member of COUNTER, which provides the standard that enables the knowledge community to count the use of electronic resources. COUNTER standards are used in SANLiC's agreement negotiations.
• SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerSANLiC is the South African country representative on the governing council of SCOAP3, a partnership of 3,000 libraries, funding agencies, research institutions and intergovernmental organisations that converts high-quality subscription journals in High-Energy Physics to Open Access.
• SAGE PublishingcoreTechnology or IntegrationSAGE and SANLiC reached a new Read and Publish deal covering SAGE Premier's 1,100+ journals. Authors receive a 20% discount on fully open access titles.
• Springer NatureflagshipTechnology or IntegrationTransformational R&P agreement covering 2,260+ journals in Springer, Adis, Nature Academic and Palgrave Macmillan collections. Article cap for 2026 is 1,173 for South Africa, 14 for University of Botswana, and 6 for University of Namibia.
• Cambridge University PresscoreTechnology or IntegrationR&P agreement renewed (2025-2027). Institutions receive access to 330+ hybrid and 40 gold OA journals. Authors can publish without paying APCs.
• Emerald PublishingcoreTechnology or IntegrationThree-year agreement (2025-2027) with Emerald. R&P agreement providing read access and capped OA publishing (199 articles for 2026).
• IOP Publishing (IOPscience Extra)coreTechnology or IntegrationR&P agreement providing read access to 70+ journals and OA publishing in IOPP's hybrid and gold journals without APCs. No cap on articles.
• Royal SocietycoreTechnology or IntegrationR&P agreement with Royal Society covering ten high-impact journals. Authors can publish without paying APCs.
• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)coreTechnology or IntegrationR&P agreement renewed (2024-2026). Full ACM Digital Library access and authors can publish in hybrid and gold OA journals without APCs. No article cap.
• ConsortiaManagercoreTechnology or IntegrationConsortiaManager is the acquisition workflow management tool used by SANLiC and other consortia worldwide to streamline the workflow for the acquisition cycle. Each member institution has access to their own information.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• JISC: UK-based non-profit that negotiates collective licensing agreements for higher education institutions — a direct functional equivalent of SANLiC but at much larger scale, providing benchmarking for consortium negotiation models and R&P deal structures.
• LYRASIS: US non-profit library consortium offering collective licensing, content hosting, and technology services to academic and research libraries — directly comparable in mission and service mix to SANLiC.
• eIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries): International non-profit that negotiates affordable access to scholarly content for libraries in developing and transition countries — highly comparable to SANLiC's regional mission and operating model across Africa, Asia, and Europe.
• CAUL (Council of Australian University Librarians): Australian national consortium that negotiates publisher agreements on behalf of member universities and actively drives open access transition — comparable to SANLiC in mission, governance, and focus on transformational deals.
• CRKN (Canadian Research Knowledge Network): Canadian consortium of research universities that negotiates collective licensing and manages content access — directly analogous to SANLiC in representing a national higher-ed membership base with publisher negotiations.
• CONCERT (Consortium of Computers, Electronic Resources and Libraries): Malaysian national library consortium facilitating affordable access to scholarly electronic resources across universities — directly comparable emerging-market counterpart to SANLiC's Southern African footprint.
• SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics): International consortium converting subscription journals in high-energy physics to open access via collective funding from libraries and funders — SANLiC represents South Africa on SCOAP3's governing council, indicating direct operational overlap.

Emerging players

• Knowledge Unlatched: Non-profit enabling open access to books and journals via collective library funding models — overlaps with SANLiC's OA transition agenda but focuses on monograph and humanities content rather than journal licensing.

Regional players

• OhioLINK: US statewide academic library consortium in Ohio that negotiates collective licensing for member institutions — comparable consortium model to SANLiC but operates in a different geography with much larger scale.

Others

• ICOLC (International Coalition of Library Consortia): Informal coalition of ~200 library consortia worldwide including SANLiC; not a direct competitor but the umbrella body through which SANLiC benchmarks against and learns from peer consortia globally.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

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• Facebookfacebook.com/profile.php?id=100071243325450
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsanlic.ac.za&title=SANLiC

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about SANLiC