ACRL New England Chapter News Online

ISSN 1527-0106

Spring 2006, Number 108

In This Issue (Home):

President's Letter

Annual Conference Summaries:

C & B Committee Report

Legislative Report

Interest Group Reports and Announcements:

Board Meeting Minutes, March 10, 2006
Calendar Listings

Speed Dating, Hookups and Enduring Partnerships:
a Dialogue about Consortial Relationships for Collection Development & Acquisitions

Sharon Colvin, MS Candidate
Simmons College

Anne Myers (Boston University), Leslie Horner Button (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Jennifer Carroll (University of New Hampshire), Leslie Knapp (EBSCO Information Services) and Barbara Preece (Boston Library Consortium, Inc.) led a discussion about consortial relationships and the cost of electronic resources. The bottom line of the discussion was that negotiating electronic database access is like buying a used car. It’s hard to know what decision to make because information is not readily available. Publishers don’t understand how librarians spend money and librarians are not trained negotiators.

Consortial membership can provide convenience, but sometimes it can be better to negotiate individual deals with publishers. Every school seems to be paying some unknown and unspoken price for similar access. There was some discussion of how to bypass the nondisclosure agreement, but most were hesitant to speak openly about price. The last bit of advice was to do as much research as possible, talk to faculty and to similar sized institutions before making a decision. The process is far from speed dating.