The Heron Digitisation Service

HERON offers a national service for copyright clearance, digitisation and delivery of book extracts and journal articles to academic institutions paying an annual fee.

HERON is also a designated Trusted Repository, holding copies of CLA-cleared digitised texts. They hold copies of material requested through HERON plus texts from some of the most frequently requested subject areas which have been digitised on a speculative basis and made available for rapid re-use.

When an institution submits a request, HERON staff approach the rights-holders for permission to digitise and store the material in the HERON Resource Bank. If copyright permission is granted, HERON staff can provide the requester with an estimate of the final costs. If the estimate is accepted by the requester, the request cannot be subsequently withdrawn unless HERON fails to meet its target of making items ready to download within 28 days of your acceptance date. If the estimate is not accepted an administrative fee of £20 is still charged.

HERON will digitise the extract and make the file available to the requesting institution via the HERON web interface. There is a 14 day approval period during which the file can be returned and no fee incurred, if the quality of the digitisation should be unacceptable.

Costs

• HERON costs can vary considerably.
• HERON add an administrative charge of £20 for carrying out this work and to assist in the development of the HERON service. N.B. The HERON fee is also charged to the requesting institution if it decides not to go ahead with procuring the item.

Details on how to request digital copies of items on module mailing lists at Aberystwyth University are available here