- Shopping Bag ( 0 items )
From The Critics
Reviewer: Karen M. Albert, BS, MLS(Fox Chase Cancer Center)Description: Edited by an experienced vendor representative and librarian, this book covers many aspects of the complex relationship between libraries and vendors. The book provides insights on the interactions between these two communities from a variety of perspectives, including different library types and publishers, as well as a book vendor, library association, and standards organization.
Purpose: This book aims to explain how libraries and vendors can cooperate to accomplish their respective goals. Libraries depend on vendors to provide mission-critical services to their users. Vendors depend on libraries for their profits and success. Both sides can benefit from understanding the needs and motivations of the other to foster positive collaborations. As editor David Carlson notes in his introductory chapter, technology has intensified the library/vendor relationship, creating a greater need for information on this topic.
Audience: This book is aimed primarily at librarians and vendors. Many types of libraries — academic, public, government — are represented, with most of the content generally applicable. Both editors have reasonable credentials and represent their respective constituencies well.
Features: Chapter authors are representative of the library and vendor communities. Librarians, vendors, and institutional IT staff should find value in the chapter on the knotty problem of excessive downloading from e-resources. The chapter on library advisory boards is also enlightening, and the book includes interesting chapters on software codevelopment and community college library/vendor relationships. A few important topics are overlooked: a librarian's point of view on open access (only the vendor's viewpoint is covered by R. Olivieri of Blackwell Publishing); negotiating site licenses; and the changing role of the subscription agent.
Assessment: "Overall, this book includes interesting and useful information on the complicated but important topic of library/vendor relationships. Anderson's Buying and Contracting for Resources and Services: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians (Neal-Schuman, 2004) may give more detailed practical guidance for librarians. This book adds to this body of literature, providing a variety of voices and perspectives, along with relationship examples that demonstrate interesting library/vendor collaborations while suggesting ways for these two communities to mutually benefit from their interactions. "
Overview
As technology advances, libraries are forced to reach beyond their own resources to find effective ways to maintain accuracy and superior service levels. Vendors provide databases and integrated library systems that perform those functions for profit. Library/Vendor Relationships examines the increasing cooperation in which libraries find they must participate in, and vice versa, ...