Re: Unresponsive information providers

[Victoria.Mitchell@directory.reed.edu (Victoria Mitchell)]

--- You wrote:
Is anyone else having this experience? Do information providers have some
insight to share about this lack of responsiveness? Do librarians have
ideas about how to get these deals negotiated and completed in a timely
manner?
--- end of quote ---

I have had this experience frequently, although I do not have the
time--licensing being only one of my many responsibilities--to follow up
as assiduously as no doubt you do.  My guess is that many info. providers
are just not set up to handle this.  They perhaps expect that libraries
will simply accept the terms that they are given and do not have anyone
who is designated to deal with negotiation and revision of contracts; or
it simply isn't a high enough priority.

It is extremely frustrating, though, and means that we don't have access
to things that we ought to, and that those providers may not be getting
the subscription money that they would if they could meet us halfway in
getting a license signed.  In some cases, it is a very small --perhaps
society--publisher that is offering the electronic version of their
journal(s) for free, but accompanied by a license agreement with a few
unacceptable terms.  When prevented with proposed revisions to the
agreement, they have no idea how to respond.  A standardized license
agreement with library-friendly terms would probably particularly help
that kind of organization -- if they adopted it, they wouldn't have to
deal with the negotations and revisions that they don't have the staff to
handle.

Victoria Mitchell
Reed College