CRIV CONNECTION

Author: Wickliffe Shreve, Head of Scholarly Services and Journals Advisor, Goodson Law Library at Duke Law School

At some point in most of our library careers, we inevitably find ourselves involved in the acquisitions process, and for many of us, this means we have the final say and authority to purchase what we need for the library. This can be part of negotiations for purchases of any size for the library. This allows us to be nimble in acquiring the resources our patrons need. The request kicking off such a negotiation process can come from anywhere, depending on the institution. A public patron may request a single book. A student may request increased access to study guides. A faculty member may request access to a proprietary database.

But what happens when new policies requiring approval of purchases over a nominal amount from offices unrelated to the library are put in place? The question then becomes, who has the final say in these negotiations? For a single purchase the answer is often clear. Once we are discussing larger vendor agreements, it may be more opaque. The CRIV Blog discussed the questions surrounding the content of many of these larger contracts last year: Reading the Fine Print: What Did We Just agree To? – CRIV Connection. 

But once the content of the contract is decided, the concrete results of these negotiations have distinct effects on the day-to-day work for librarians. These include contacting vendors about account access, confirming payments, or, unfortunately, ensuring access to resources for which we have already paid. While writing that last sentence, I found myself fielding questions about maintaining access to one of our vendors because, unsurprisingly, the agreed-upon methods had changed. (What credentials are required? Is access campus-wide or limited to a specific school within the institution? What personal information must patrons provide to sign up or continue their access?)

As academic law librarians, our understanding of the structure of these contracts is essential if, and when we most often do, have responsibilities for teaching the use of these vendor products to our students. Our responsibilities to our student patrons do not end after the third year of law school, but shore up the supports for their work as professionals. What access do they have during the summers when they are working as student associates? Beyond their time here, will that access include Lexis and Westlaw materials beyond annotated primary U.S. law, citators, law reviews, and select other secondary sources? Will the firms even have a Library Maintenance Agreement? Then there are the legacy costs—essentially, securing access means asking: who is responsible for maintaining it?

Beyond even that, we must also remember that as law libraries we play an important role in access to justice for all our patrons, private and public. Are we truly fulfilling our roles if we are not at the table, ensuring these negotiations lead to the outcomes we need?

So far, I’ve written almost more interrogative than declarative sentences, and that’s part of the point. Despite having to address all of the questions, law librarians have not always been at the center of the collection development process. Janet Sinder describes how we have, in essence, gained a place at the table in her article from Law Library Journal titled, “The Effects of Demand-Driven Acquisitions on Law Library Collection Development.” Initially, major collection decisions were made by the bar or the faculty. Not nearly the oldest law library, but the Law Library of Congress was founded in 1832. But it wasn’t until the 1950s when the Association of American Law Schools reported that “[t] he most frequently mentioned method of choosing books [was] by the librarian under major faculty policies.” This was not necessarily by written design, but by general practice. Notice that even then, it was only the “most frequently mentioned,” we drove the collection by mere mention. It was not until at least 1970, as Sinder references work by Marian Gallagher’s Book Selection in Law Libraries–Who’s in Charge Here?, that the selection process moved from “administrator-patrons” to “chief law librarians” to library staff . . . and finally that “[l]aw libraries apparently have begun to come out of the do-it-yourself era and into the leave-it-to-the-professionals era.”

We, law librarians, being the professionals after more than 100 years.  

That was a long road. Today, discussions surrounding efficiencies may lead administrators to consider leaving decisions that are now made by us as professionals to others. We must remember the effects contract negotiations with venders impact our daily work, require our input based on requests we deal with from the very patrons we serve, and the long fought-for history of our place in collections practices as these discussions come up . . . before we give up our place at the table.