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Negotiation Advice From Library Leaders and Vendors
Negotiating is one of the most important skills a librarian can have. Unfortunately, library schools do not uniformly teach the art of negotiating, so many librarians remain woefully unprepared to engage in negotiation. Peter Brantley, on his Thoughts and Speculations blog, identifies the ability to effectively negotiate and renegotiate contracts as one of the necessary elements to the successful reshaping of libraries. Brantley goes so far as to say, "Where significant contracts must be re-negotiated . . . frankly, librarians make poor businessmen and worse negotiators. Acquisitions - the business part of it - should be removed from libraries and placed into central campus purchasing units . . . Move the most critical staff - the ones with the most expert or specialized knowledge of vendors - to central campus units and terminate the remaining positions."1 Before any acquisitions librarians start packing up their desks, however, they should know that skillful negotiation is something that can be learned. And one of the best ways to begin learning is to listen to those industry leaders who can offer their perspectives on the current negotiation environment.
For this article, we interviewed vendors, content providers, consortium directors, subscription agents, licensing experts, and librarians to broadly map the negotiation landscape. Surprisingly (or maybe not) , each offered variations on the same advice and insights. Most of the comments centered on negotiation for content, tools, or services, which is what we traditionally think of when negotiation enters a conversation. However, remember that we all engage in all types of negotiation all the time - negotiation with user communities; with employees, co-workers, and employers; with funding agencies; with administrators; and more. This article will focus on negotiation for content, tools, and services, but the lessons learned may expand well beyond.
Before You Get to the Table ...
First and foremost, almost all the people interviewed for this article advised librarians not to be frightened of negotiation. Without much training in this area, librarians may feel a certain fear of the unknown, but this unknown area is knowable. Librarians charged with negotiation responsibilities must invest in continued training and education - even if their institutions do not overtly support such endeavors. Within the library...