Author: Laurel Moran, Assistant Director, Legal Information Management at San Diego Law Library
Per the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Vendor Relations Policy, AALL encourages legal publishers to maintain subscriber-paid content throughout the term of the subscriber’s contract . . .
AALL encourages legal publishers to consult with law library customers on significant potential publication changes, e.g., format, frequency, etc.
The above-mentioned policies have been on my mind during this past year. Vendor changes I noticed as the head of our library acquisitions team have caused me to reflect on these statements and their meaning. In our small library, we have seen a trend of disappearing publications; modifications of terms mid-contract; and changes to publication cycles, formats, cost, and accessibility, with little or no advance communication from the vendor. When changes do occur, at mid-budget cycle or without notice, it causes rework, recalculation, and stress for a small staff. How do you cope and communicate best with vendors when these things happen?
I had to refresh my knowledge about the best librarian/vendor practices this year so that I could hopefully temper my own reactions and frustrations (which I did most of the time) and make sure that the result of discussions, communication, and negotiations made sense for our library and for our long-term relationship with the vendors. There are several good guides on this topic from the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG), The Serials Librarian, and also CRIV Tools. I will summarize a few of the most relevant points from those sources and then give a quick snapshot of how those worked in a few real-life situations.
One crucial point made by experts in librarian/vendor relations is that optimizing library/vendor partnerships requires collaboration, problem solving ability, and clear communication (see resources below). We encountered situations twice this year where different vendors made a change to how they would allow their resources to be utilized by public law libraries. In general terms, after signing a new order that allowed a certain type of patron access, a change was made to result in more restrictive access to a resource. One was due to the vendor making a business decision unilaterally. The other was due to issues with a bad actor misusing the resource at multiple libraries (not just ours). In both cases, parties (library and vendor) were open about their expectations and options, whether terms were negotiable or not, and agreement was reached with a reduction in price due to the unexpected changes mid-contract. While it was not what the library wanted for our patrons, clear communication and a willingness to provide options to the library resulted in a satisfactory resolution of the issues. Clear communication made all the difference and even strengthened the vendor/library relationship.
Recognizing patterns and adapting is another skill that has served us well over the past year. While our users may have loved to forever have access to print forms, books, and CD ROMs of legal forms, both formats have now died. We have had more than one vendor cease print publication of forms—heavy titles to provide them only in online databases. All vendors have now quit providing CDs of forms as a companion to their print titles. We have tried to collaborate on what takes the place of forms (for circulating books). Working with the vendors, we have created access to downloadable forms links that we can provide to our library patrons when they check out a book. While there were difficulties in this transition, it worked well and was a win-win for our library patrons and vendors. We also work to try to see patterns in pricing and adapt and forecast to meet budgets. At times during the last year this has called for mid-year negotiation of discounts and cuts as larger than expected price increases have been the norm. Looking for patterns and adapting is a vital skill.
Refreshing my learning on these good vendor relations practices helped put things in perspective for the coming year of acquisitions. A list of sources follows that are worth a look if you find yourself in similar situations.
Resources
- Bournoutian, N. (2022). “Tips for Working with Vendors,”
Core News. https://alacorenews.org/2022/05/17/tips-for-working-with-vendors/.
2. CRIV Tools, American Association of Law Libraries Committee on Relations with Information Vendors (CRIV). Available at: https://www.aallnet.org/advocacy/vendor-relations/criv-tools/.
3. Ginanni, K., McKee, A. E., Wilson, J., & Brown, L. A. “Yer Doin’ it Wrong: How NOT to Interact with Vendors, Publishers, or Librarians,” The Serials Librarian, 68(1–4), 255–261 (2015) https://doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2015.1023131.
4. McAllister, C., Gallagher, E., Hill, K. & Brown, D., (2023) “Tales from the Other Side: Librarians and Vendors Get Real,” NASIG Proceedings 37. doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/nasig.4022
5. Thomas, Wm. Joseph (2013) “A Beginner’s Guide to Working with Vendors,” NASIG Newsletter:, Vol. 28: No. 6, Article 5. Available at: https://open.clemson.edu/nasig/vol28/iss6/5.
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