SHEDL aims through collaboration and combined purchasing power to achieve a shared digital library in Scotland with easier access to online content to support research and learning and teaching.

Led by the Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL), SHEDL is the first super-consortial purchasing scheme of its kind in the UK. It's success, facilitated by JISC Collections, has provided the nineteen Scottish Higher Education Institutions with access to over 1850 online journals from leading academic publishers; American Chemical Society (ACS), Berg, Cambridge University Press (CUP), Edinburgh University Press (EUP), Oxford University Press (OUP), Springer, and also Portico.