may I suggest that it might be useful to report this back to Serials Solutions, and/or say it on your blog as well? - RepoRat

Yeah, we'll see if I come up with anything to write semi-formally, but those thoughts have crossed my mind. - lris

I agree. I'm sure Jane Burke would want to hear from you. Mention it on your blog? Perhaps after speaking to Jane - the post might share what the response was from the top, and a post might reflect badly on SerSol - when if might just be this one rep who has an issue. - steven bell

Steven, sincere question: why should a librarian care if their post "reflects badly" on a vendor? Edit: I mean, I understand that talking to someone up the chain would allow a blogger to present a more complete view of the situation. But as long as a person posts the truth, why worry about something reflecting badly on a vendor. - Steele Lawman

Well, pragmatically, some vendors will play gotcha with librarians, complaining up the librarian's chain of command and whatnot. Dirty pool? Sure. But it's a consideration. - RepoRat

Fair question Steve. I'd like to give the rep the benefit of the doubt - maybe having a bad day - perhaps in need of more training - maybe just off their game this time. If the rep isn't named in the post - and I doubt you'd do that - then others who read may it may be put off by all of this vendor's reps. Think of it this way. One reference librarian is having a bad day - in a bad mood - maybe shouldn't even be dealing with the public - and is a jerk to a student. Should the student blog about it, write in the school paper that the librarians are jerks. Then what? You have lots more students shying away from the library b/c this one report reflects badly on the whole reference department -even if it's true. Or would it be more productive for the student to share their unsatisfactory experience with a supervisor who can actually help the librarian to improve their performance? To my way of thinking, that's just a more reasonable and fair thing to do. - steven bell

Fair enough. I'd thought about that counter-example, too, Steven. I guess I'd think that while I'd certainly prefer that the student contact the library, I would also admit that the student need not worry about their factual complaint reflecting badly on the library. - Steele Lawman

It's funny because the more I think about this the more I realize that I'm not particularly interested in reporting vendor reps that rub me wrong (I'd have to quit my day job to keep up with that hobby). I'll spout off here briefly in frustration, sure, but I don't really consider it my duty to fix the situation. - lris

I *am* interested in learning whether the points he was making reflect SS philosophy, though, because when I write on my blog I usually abstract the situation to make broader points than "this guy was weird." That's far less interesting to me than whether the philosophies he was pushing are indicative of the company's goals. If they are, that's something that I think people will be interested to know because that gives us a clearer picture of the near future of search and discovery, which means it gives us a clearer picture of the near future of major chunks of our professional lives. - lris

I don't know if people have seen my colleague Bill Denton's post on what the damn things cost: http://www.miskatonic.org/2011... Yeah, we're investigating too. - John Dupuis

I had an interesting talk with an ACS rep. Basically, their answer to my being upset about a 22% increase in costs is the same as Nature's was with U of CA - you had too good a consortial deal and we're making prices more normal now. And we take into account your size and use etc. - it's "value pricing" - and it's still a 22% increase. When a secret deal is too good it's a gateway drug. I remember the moment I got hooked on ACS - it was one hell of a good deal. - barbara fister

yep yep yep yep yep. Ken Frazier warned us about that, but did we listen? noooooooooooo... (and ironically, Ken's own library system didn't listen either) - RepoRat

I don't have any hard numbers, but last year Summon sales offered our UL a deeply discounted deal (which would have helped make Summon a "consortial product" presumably) Also this offer had a ridiculously short deadline. It happened around this time last year... oh, and look... I have been invited to a meeting called "New Committee (URM/Discovery Layer Assessment) for next week. Funny that. - copystar

Mita, that sounds strangely familiar. Or perhaps not so strangely. - John Dupuis

the challenge with being part of such a geographically diffuse group is that it challenges our ability to talk about things like this as candidly as we might like, sub rosa. - DJF