Over the next few weeks, the CRIV Blog will focus on … CRIV! We’ll be highlighting our website and the vendor tools and information that have been created for the AALL community.

This week’s post spotlights the AALL “Vendor Relations Policy.” Future posts will highlight “Fair Business Practices for Legal Publishers,” “Policies & Procedures for Licensing Electronic Resources,” CRIV’s vendor liaisons and Request for Assistance form, and the CRIV publications, the CRIV Blog and The CRIV Sheet.

Finding CRIV Information Generally

Finding CRIV information is easy from the AALL homepage. Scroll over the Advocacy tab at the top right of the screen. A popup box provides links to the Liaisons to Vendors, The CRIV Sheet, CRIV Tools, CRIV Blog, Policies, and the Request for Assistance form.

Finding the AALL Vendor Relations Policy

Scroll over the Advocacy tab on the AALL homepage and select, “Policies.”

AALL Vendor Relations Policy

The purpose of the Vendor Relations Policy is to direct AALL’s advocacy on issues related to legal publishing and legal publishers. The goal of the policy is to provide the AALL community with information that helps them in their interactions with suppliers to the profession.

The Policy consists of 4 parts: part I, an introduction; part II, issues supported by the AALL Government Relations Policy; part III, other AALL policies that support vendor relations activities; and part IV, issues identified for advocacy with legal publishers.

The Government Relations Policy monitors proposed legislation and regulations, evaluating the impact on members, access to justice, and the legal information industry. In part II, you’ll find a list of issues and principles relating to public policy and the publishing industry that support areas related to vendor relations.

In part III, other AALL policies that support vendor relations, you will find, among others, AALL’s Preservation Policy, which supports standards and guidelines to ensure preservation of legal materials, and AALL’s Sponsorship Policy, which outlines parameters for sponsorship to ensure a mutually beneficial exchange. This part also provides a statement encouraging legal publishers to provide usage statistics in compliance with the COUNTER Code of Practice.

Many publishing and customer service issues are addressed in other CRIV documentation, but part IV identifies 10 additional issues identified for advocacy with legal publishers. Some issues mentioned: more pricing transparency, simplified licensing models, and assignment of customer reps who have knowledge and understanding of all product lines and individual library accounts.

Antitrust Questions

A number of years ago, AALL developed a list of antitrust frequently asked questions, which have been posted on the CRIV website along with the Vendor Relations Policy. In recognition of the need to review the questions, the FAQs have been removed from the website. In the meantime, the AALL Executive Board is moving forward to develop and adopt a full antitrust policy for the community.

For readers who are interested in what other associations state about antitrust, see the American Library Association’s ALA Legal Framework: Twenty Questions (questions 13, 14) and Part 10 of the Special Libraries Association’s 2019 Unit Recommended Practices (page 47).

Up next week — Fair Business Practice for Legal Publishers.