seriously - I'm thinking about the librarian in black's call to arms and am wondering how exactly to respond. It's fine to be vocal about our dissatisfaction, but how do we withhold our dollars when they have it all and our clientele want it? We have the money, but how do we take collective action? ideas? - barbara fister

this is where i get stumped too. How do we take collective action, and what can the LSW do to help make that happen? - ~Courtney F.

we should probably all be on the same page about how we define "unethical behavior" and decide at what level of dissatisfaction we will be prompted to take action. if we don't deal with those things first then our actions will be uneven. - Marie

My best suggestion is the big consortia: Lyrasis, the statewide networks, etc. that negotiate the big deals with the vendors. No idea how to get the LSW in there, though. - Catherine Pellegrino

negotiate conformist micro-deals with publishers across the library universe to get their electronic content directly? - Jason (not an Argonaut)

Catherine - what about the big consortia? The members of those consortia would have to come together to get the consortia to act, and how would you get them to do that? or who at the consortia would decide what action gets taken when a vendor crosses the line? (and like Marie said - we need to all be on the same page) - ~Courtney F.

Well, yes, I'll certainly agree that we all need to be on the same page about where the line is and such. I'm focusing more on the "action" piece because that's what Barbara asked, and I'm an action-kinda gal. (Ask me about "the process song" some day.) I've no idea how the big consortia work; presumably they negotiate with vendors on behalf of their members, but the mechanisms between that negotiation and us are so remote as to be nonexistent. From ou perspective, it goes like this: "Well, we can get this EBSCO database for free from the state. Or, we could pay thousands of dollars we don't have for this competing database. Guess we'll go with EBSCO, huh?" (or, substitute Lyrasis for "the state.") My library is so far down the totem pole in the negotiation picture that it's pretty much immaterial what *we* think. - Catherine Pellegrino

refuse to take their cheesy swag? That''ll larn 'em. - rochelle rochelle

oh, I agree completely, Catherine. Maybe we need to work to make those negotiations more visible? and as long as my director is looking for the cheapest option, my hands are tied, for the most part. I'd probably have a very hard time convincing him to go for a more expensive option because the company is more ethical/treats libs better/etc. - ~Courtney F.

Turn down their cash awards for travel, training, professional accomplishment? - rochelle rochelle

At the very least, our feelings about unethical, unhelpful, or outrageous behavior from vendors can easily play a role in the decision making process for any new databases we are being urged to start subscribing to. EBSCO, for example, is frequently pushing us to consider this new database and then that one; that company's deals with publishers is always in mind as I consider whether or not we should start a subscription. For now, I've got enough bad feelings about EBSCO that I will urge my colleagues to seriously think twice about any new subscriptions. - Stephen Francoeur

What if we came up with an actual LSW Code for dealing with vendors? It'd be more of a stunt than an action, but it might get some attention. - laura x

i like that idea, Laura. What about taking that Code and asking the ALA Council Members we know (whether LSW or not) to bring it up in ALA Council? - ~Courtney F.

I like Laura's idea too. - Catherine Pellegrino

I just posted on my blog about this. See my point #7 for thoughts about what a "code" might look like. See my point #8 for something closer to what I'm actually thinking right now. http://stevelawson.name/seealso... - Your Neighbor Steve

*hands out noisemakers* - barbara fister

librarians warn me not to publicly criticize my ILS vendor, in case it results in lack of support from them. i'm not sure how real this fear is, are vendors that scary? i'm not sure how much of this fear is warranted, but i feel constrained. after sitting through a presentation about Sirsi-Dynix's new iPhone app wondering why such a thing is necessary, mentally listing how it doesn't have the basic functionality that i expect on my iPhone and how the design looks like the web did in 2001, i'm not sure i need to keep these concerns private. i think the more we all speak up about these things the easier it makes it for others to speak. the flip side is that we need to take responsibility for the future of our library systems...i reckon the same is true for database content and vendors, but i know less about the politics in that area. phew. - tara

I think one place where I have trouble imagining action is that I for one am not in charge of purchasing. So while I might agree in theory that the system is broken and something should happen, I don't have any personal power at my institution in terms of actual contracts and purchases, and I'm not inclined to jump in and assume our librarian who does collections isn't discussing these very things with them. Am definitely interested in hearing from others or coll dev folks on appropriate mechanisms for engagement. - Rachel Walden

Fine by me - it's a public thread, I wouldn't have posted if I didn't want what I wrote to be public. - Catherine Pellegrino

Catherine, what's this about "the process song"? - awd

I hope your UKSG folks enjoy/ed it. - barbara fister

Someone named John (I have a sneaking feeling he's a Gale employee, but I don't have any basis for that...) said this at Meredith's blog: "Earlier this year EBSCO served Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to many (most?) state consortia and many state institutions of higher learning to obtain the details of these consortia/institutions contract details, including pricing, of all electronic resources. Now EBSCO has the pricing details of their competitors. They’re going to undercut their competitors and use cutthroat tactics to drive their competitors out of business. I find this objectionable and slimy – it violates the intent of FOIA law, which wasn’t written to provide competitive business advantage for a for-profit company." Um, actually FOIA is FOIA and maybe we should file some of them ourselves? Can FOIA trump non-disclosure? wouldn't that ROCK???!! - barbara fister

Apparently, FOIA can. My Ebsco rep called today and mentioned that they were looking to make TN a better deal than we have with Gale for statewide resources. It sounded like they had gotten pricing info for at least some similar situations. - ~Courtney F. from iPod

FOIA certainly trumps NDA for public institutions in any state with open-government laws (e.g., California and a lot of others). That's not slimy; it's called conducting business in the open. If Gale (or Elsevier, or whoever) needs secrecy to be competitive, that's a problem for them, but it actually speaks to the power of open-government laws and FOIA. - Walt Crawford

yeah, I also don't necessarily find this to be sneaky. Prospecitve staff use the same laws to lookup salaries of current employees to get a sense of what kind of salary range can be asked for at the bargaining table. I think it just means being prepared. I think this topic is similar to the big vs little institutions making the deal they get with a vendor secret vs. getting a similar or better discount together as a consortia. - Jason (not an Argonaut)