Spring is a time of progress and growth, and we’ve made a lot of headway on the vendor relations front in recent months.

The work of the Library Procurement Process Improvements Task Force came to fruition in April when the Executive Board adopted the Procurement Toolkit and Code of Best Practices For Licensing Electronic Resources. In addition to the Code of Best Practices with commentary, the toolkit includes a procurement process checklist, a licensing checklist, resources for licensing terms and definitions, resources for sample clauses and model license agreements, and a bibliography on licensing and procurement of electronic resources. A print version of the toolkit is being prepared and will be available soon.

The Executive Board also has approved a new Vendor Relations Policy, which directs the Association’s advocacy efforts on issues related to legal publishing and legal publishers. The policy provides guidance for me, the Committee on Relations with Information Vendors, and other AALL entities that interact with legal publishers and monitor issues relating to legal publishing. The policy includes a list of issues that are supported by AALL’s Government Information Policy, links to other policies that support vendor relations activities, and a list of additional issues that have been identified for advocacy with legal publishers.

In combination with the Third Edition of the Guide to Fair Business Practices for Legal Publishers, approved in November 2012, these documents provide a framework for vendor relations advocacy as well as new resources that law librarians can use in their communications with legal publishers.

For more information on AALL’s vendor relations activities, see our Updates on AALLNET.

Margaret K. Maes
AALL Vendor Liaison
mmaes@aall.org
312-802-1776