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The art of the deal: the power and pitfalls of consortial negotiation.

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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.

The improved pricing that comes with consortial purchases has ramifications beyond any individual library budget. "A consortial agreement expands access in at least two ways: by negotiating lower prices and re-distributing costs, it can make resources affordable for its smaller members; and by offering 'cross access' to content subscribed to by other member institutions, it can make available to each member far more content than would be possible in an individual agreement," described Ivy Anderson, director of collections for the California Digital Library (CDL).

Consortia can bring libraries to the negotiation table that may never have been there on their own, because there is no question as to whether or not there will be a discounted list price--the only question is how big the discount will be. One of the first and worst mistakes inexperienced library negotiators can make is to simply not negotiate at all. In a consortial negotiation, there's no question that any deal struck will be better than list price. Joining a consortial deal relieves the individual librarian --especially an inexperienced one--of the bazaar-like activity of negotiation.

Of course, price isn't everything, even if sometimes it sure feels that way. Sometimes, unrealistic and draconian licensing terms can make a resource so difficult to manage and use that it is hardly worth the trouble, not to mention the price. Once again, consortia can offer help in this regard. Kim Armstrong, assistant director of the Center for Library Initiatives at the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), explained that by representing a large number of libraries, consortia can push for the progressive licensing terms that many librarians are currently seeking. "We can't always predict 5 or 10 years out what is going to be a priority in a license, so we are able to help move along new terms that may not be standard yet in license agreements, but which are emerging for our libraries," Armstrong remarked. Terms such the right to interlibrary loan, the right to place materials on reserve or in course packs, or the right to deposit materials by an institution's faculty into institutional repositories represent just a few of the license terms that consortia have championed....

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