Summary answer provided to the Lis-law email list in response to a question asking for advice/experiences on using joint procurement for electronic resources:

No-one appears to as yet managed to purchase electronic databases such as Westlaw and PLC through a consortium, with projects to do so falling down at various hurdles.

Regarding third-party suppliers: some organisations do use these but as an individual not as part of a consortium. Advantages mentioned to using one were that it reduced the amount of trying to deal with publishers over invoices and being able to pay part or all at a time in your budget which is convenient for you. The downside being the cost and you still had to negotiate the final price with the publisher.

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