From: Kathy Perry <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2012 10:47:24 -0500
Ann, et al,
We have had some good experiences with several vendors on outright purchases.
I'm sure every group has to consider the cost-benefit and tipping
point for them. In general, we have found that we'll look at a
purchase if we can see the break-even point in a "reasonable" period
-- 3 years is about right for us. 5 years is too long in this
volatile world. We also look very carefully at the ongoing costs for
access, etc., which in some cases have been quite high and in need of
major adjustments.
As for splitting costs (both for outright purchases and for some major
new subscriptions that fell late in a fiscal year), we've found
vendors to be very willing to split the costs over several years .
This has been extremely helpful and we were very grateful.
Something fairly obvious (but perhaps useful) to keep in mind is that
the vendors often have a different fiscal year than we have. So
asking them to split a payment over 2 of our fiscal years may actually
fall into their fiscal (calendar or other time period) year. For
example, if we pay in May of 2012 and September 2012, it's still
calendar year 2012, so that's not a problem at all as long as they can
plan for their cash flow. Always good to find out what their fiscal
year is and what are their key quarters for quotas, etc. Turns out it
might be easy to help each other out.
cheers,
kp
Katherine A. Perry l VIVA Director l o: 703.993.4654 l skype: kaperi0
email: [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]
On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 6:28 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: Ann Shumelda Okerson <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:44:20 -0500
>
> Dear library readers: Many of our libraries and consortia make
> outright purchases of electronic databases, such as archival,
> historical, news, governmental, and the like (I'm excluding current
> e-book collections or current e-journal subs). These may be one-time
> purchases, or one-time perhaps with some token annual hosting fees.
>
> My question is, under what circumstances do you prefer to purchase
> over time (e.g., 2 or more annual payments) as opposed to paying for the
> whole database outright? Why would you choose one or the other of
> these methods in any given case? Have you regretted one or the other
> choice?
>
> Do most publishers provide the option of payment over time for a data
> base that costs, say, $30K and up? Any who don't?
>
> (I write this as one who's generally followed a practice of not buying
> a database unless we know we can pay for it all within a fiscal year,
> rather than making "time" payments, because who knows what a future
> budget year will bring, but I realize that's probably quite
> old-fashioned.)
>
> Many thanks for your thoughts.
>
> Ann Okerson
> ([log in to unmask], or
> [log in to unmask])
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