The Oregon Statewide Database Licensing Program was created by the passage of SB12 into law in July 2003. SB12 was a result of the Oregon Library Association's Vision 2010 and the work of the 2002 Senate Interim Task Force on Library Cooperation. The Statewide Database Licensing Program was established as a State Library program funded by the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and superseded the Oregon Statewide Database Licensing Group, the representative library steering group that negotiated and set policies for previous statewide database contracts (with University of Oregon as fiscal agent and Orbis Cascade Alliance as administrator).
For fiscal years 2004-08, EBSCO Publishing was selected to provide general periodicals for the Oregon Statewide Database Licensing Program.
From July 1, 2005 - July 31, 2008, the State Library was able to fully subsidize the cost of The Oregonian through NewsBank. In May 2008, NewsBank proposed to raise the cost of the state license for The Oregonian database from $54,000 to $150,000 for the 2008-2009 fiscal year. In making their recommendation to the Board, the Statewide Database Licensing Advisory Committee (SDLAC) was very concerned about agreeing to such a large increase in the cost of this product, particularly in light of the modest use the database had in most Oregon libraries. The SDLAC discussed the possibility of trying again, in a year or so, to get a more reasonably priced statewide license to The Oregonian database.
In May 2009, and in conjunction with the State Library and DAS, SDLAC completed a rigorous proposal review process and selected the Gale/CENGAGE Learning proposal to provide general periodicals for the Oregon Statewide Database Licensing Program. Both the LSTA Advisory Council and State Library Board approved the recommendation and the State Library proceeded with the procurement process.
In August 2009, a new contract was signed to begin September 1, 2009. This contract had a term for two years, with an option to renew for up to three years.
From 2005 to 2009 the LSTA funds provided a 50% subsidy for academic and public libraries and fully funded school and tribal libraries. As of October 19, 2009, LSTA funding was be used to fully subsidize the 22 databases provided by Gale/CENGAGE Learning for a cost of just under $400,000 per year.
In early 2010, SDLAC members decided to add Opposing Viewpoints and LearningExpress Library to the statewide program, and this was approved by the LSTA Advisory Council and the OSL Board. The Opposing Viewpoints became available inf August 2010 and LearningExpress Library in November 2010.
In the summer of 2011, the contract with Gale/CENGAGE Learning was renewed for three years. As part of that, U.S. History in Context and GREENR were added to the statewide database contract at no additional cost.
In 2014, a new contract with Gale/CENGAGE Learning was established adding additional new content for $350,000 per year. As of November 2010, LearningExpress Library is also fully subsidized.
In response to ongoing dissatisfaction with with Gale/Cengage resources among the academic library community, the State Library began providing an annual subsidy to the Orbis Cascade Alliance's group subscription to EBSCO products in 2014. The subsidy has lowered the annual costs for participating library from 9-12% each year. The subsidy has also been used for ProQuest packages offered by the Alliance.
In 2015, a new contract with LearningExpress Library (now an EBSCO product) added the job seeking resource, Job & Career Accelerator and the digital literacy tutorials, Computer and Internet Basics.
In August 2016, additional eBook reference titles in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) topics were added to the Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) subscription, raising the subscription cost to $380,000 per year.
After completing a proposal review in 2017-2018, a new contract was with Gale/Cengage was established beginning in August 2018. The contract added two additional databases, Books & Authors and LitFinder and improved the currency of eBook reference titles in the GVRL subscription while keeping the subscription cost to $380,000 per year.
In 2023, the State Library announced the cancellation of the LearningExpress Library contract, effective November 1, 2023.