CRIV CONNECTION

Author: Laurel Moran, Assistant Director, San Diego Law Library

Recently, I attended an excellent online seminar sponsored by the AALL Library Systems & Resource Discovery Special Interest Section (LSRD-SIS). This webinar was titled, “Getting the Information You Need from Vendors: A Panel Discussion.¹ The speakers focused quite a bit on documenting vendor communications. This resonates in my late career. How do we pass on the knowledge we have of our library vendor relationships, history, and contacts in a sensible plan that will guide the next person who takes up the relationships built over many years?

What are some small steps we can take right now to move toward the goal of an eventual knowledge transfer?

In a small library, the risk is that so much of the vendor relationship information lives in the emails of a few people or even one person. For example, contracts kept in email inboxes, no historical pricing summaries, etc. While many libraries have library management systems or electronic resources management systems that house the contract dates, renewal dates, basic contract information, and dashboard logins and contract terms; we must be mindful of where that knowledge is kept. The takeaway is to have a centralized and designated email for all vendor communications and to make sure all information lives on a shared communications platform in the department or library.² Hand-in-hand with that is an effective and secure password management system of all the logins used for usage statistics, dashboards, customer support, and more that come along with effectively managing a product. It’s never too late to do this.

Recently, I had a very good interaction with one vendor. Our license agreement was very dated, with many agreements haven taken place to modify the terms. Most of this information was in emails between the vendor and staff. We worked together to update all the terms and to improve and document all those prior email communications and approvals in one new document. It was a positive and collaborative experience.

A second thing that can easily be done is to document not only renewal dates and terms (hopefully you have a management system that helps there), but also writing up pricing history, negotiation history, and a short explanation of why the product is important to your library and what it adds to your collection. Include any details on customizations, detail any ongoing issues, and consider outlining a standard set of contract terms of which to be aware. This type of documentation really provides the context for how the vendor relationship and product have evolved over many years. This is where you pass on what you know and what you have learned over the time you have managed the vendor relationship and product. Keep it short and impactful and it will really help those who come later to managing the vendor relationships and products that your library purchases.

When the time for transition comes closer, then start to think about having a person shadow you in vendor meetings, include them in all communications, and perhaps even consider a true handover meeting with each vendor if that level of formality works for you.

In short, the most important thing is to start thinking about transitions, change, and the future. There are some guides on how to do succession planning (or knowledge transfer) in libraries³ although many are very academic in focus, rather than practical. Documenting transitions and passing along information on vendor relationships is an important part of the jobs of librarians who work with vendors. Relationships are an investment that should be transitioned with intention and care.

Footnotes

1. AALL Library Systems & Resource Discovery Special Interest Section (LSRD) Webinar: “Getting the Information You Need from Vendors: A Panel Discussion.”
2. See Kirsten Ostergaard & Doralyn Rossmann, “Vendor Relations Strategies for Libraries,” 27 Against the Grain 6 (2015), https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.7222 for some excellent communications workflow ideas.
3. Terms used are knowledge transfer or institutional memory. The main point being to maintain knowledge in a consistent and easily accessible manner. Karl G. Siewert & Pamela Louderback, “The “Bus Proof” Library: Technical Succession Planning, Knowledge Transfer, and Institutional Memory,” 59 Journal of Library Administration 4, 455-474 (2019), 10.1080/01930826.2019.1593716; one adaptable example of a succession plan is for FLDP coordinator changeovers that might easily be modified for other library roles. See https://libguides.fdlp.gov/fdlp-succession-planning/designing-a-plan.