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26th November 2009, Towcester, UK, Beaverton, Oregon and Crystal River, Florida, USA - Frontline GMS <http://www.frontlinegms.com> and Ringgold <http://www.ringgold.com> have entered into an agreement to exchange data on worldwide library consortium membership. The new enhanced data will include over 600 library consortia in 97 countries. It will add value to both Ringgold's database and Frontline's Consortium Purchasing Directory. Both will include membership lists from each database which will be matched to the Ringgold Identifier <http://www.ringgold.com/products_identify.html> for the member institutions. The Ringgold database uniquely identifies over 155,000 institutional entities that subscribe to academic journals, and provides metadata about their structure, consortia memberships, size, type, and location. Helen Henderson, Ringgold's VP of Marketing, Research and Development said: "Consortium information is highly dynamic and this collaboration will provide much more comprehensive and accurate data for both Frontline and Ringgold customers in their licensing activities. " The fifth edition of the Directory, to be published in 2010, will nearly double in size and include information on consortia buying library management systems and other online products as well as the existing information on licensing online content. This enhancement will include additional metadata and functionality, as well as all the valuable information in the Directory profiles such as products purchased, consortium contacts, and the policies and practices of the consortium. Laura Cox, Managing Director of Frontline said: "I am delighted to be able to add so much more information to the Directory, the next edition will be vastly improved by incorporating the Ringgold data. It will enable Frontline to take the Directory to the next level, as a must have resource." About Ringgold More than 40 publishers currently use Ringgold's database and its related services to organise their customer data, prepare quotations for licenses and deals, and also for market analysis. Ringgold partners with other publisher services companies and consultants, including software and service providers such as DataSalon, Ingenta and Thomson Reuters. Helen Henderson, Ringgold's VP of Marketing, Research and Development, acts as consultant to the National Standards Information Organization (NISO) I2 Working Group on Institutional Identifiers, which is establishing standards for applications in e-resource publishing, e-learning, institutional repositories, and library management systems. About Frontline Frontline GMS was set up by Laura Cox in 2004 and provides marketing, promotion and sales consultancy services to the academic and professional publishing industry. Frontline specialises in advising publishers, vendors and intermediaries in several areas, specifically marketing strategy, PR, negotiating with library consortia, setting pricing and business models, and using and analysing subscription, customer and usage data. Frontline also undertakes major research projects, and provides PR, consortia negotiation and data analysis. lis-e-resources is a UKSG list - http://www.uksg.org/serials UKSG groups also available on Facebook and LinkedIn