The Art of the Deal

HEADNOTE

The Power and Pitfalls of Consortial Negotiation

In the face of the rising costs and complex licenses that accompany electronic resources, librarians have taken a variety of different approaches to negotiating good deals with low bottom lines

and a minimum of access restrictions. One of the ways in which librarians have been most successful in this pursuit is through the use of consortia. Consortial deals for resources - electronic and otherwise - offer a multitude of advantages, the nature and size of which often vary depending on the size and makeup of the consortium itself. As with any and all good solutions, there are also downsides to consortial negotiation. With the help of some of the top consortial negotiators at work today, this examination of consortial negotiation should shed some light on when to join the team and when to go it alone.

Welcome to the Price Club!

The process of purchasing resources through consortia has many similarities to the wholesale shopping club experience. Consortial negotiators represent a large group of libraries and consequently a large group of users. So when they look to purchase a resource, they are, in effect, buying in bulk, not unlike the buyers for a local price club. This has its advantages for not only the libraries within the consortium, but also for vendors looking to get their product out to the market in the most efficient way possible. As Anne McKee, program officer for resource sharing for the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA), explained, "The more you can bring to the table the better the publishers like it and the greater the discount." Ed McBride, chief marketing and outreach officer for SOLINET, remarked, "It represents a much larger piece of business for them [publishers or vendors] so that they are able to look at the picture as a whole and in a lot of ways, come up with a better pricing structure. The more market share they can gain from a particular deal - especially if it is a multi-year deal - the better it is for them." On the other hand, McBride noted that not all publishers or vendors, particularly the smaller ones, are keen or even able to offer such discounted pricing for large groups of libraries.