From: "Sowards, Steve" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:13:39 +0000
Dear Ann,
At Michigan State, we too usually avoid multi-year purchases because
of uncertainty about future budgets. In some cases, vendors have been
willing to take two payments during the same calendar year (which may
be their fiscal year) allowing us to pay at the end of one FY (say, in
June) and again as the new FY begins (in July). Managing two annual
payments feels less risky in general than three or more ... by late
spring we have a fair idea of what the new budget will look like.
--Steve
Steven Sowards
Associate Director for Collections
Michigan State University Libraries
100 Library
East Lansing MI 48824
-----Original Message-----
From: LibLicense-L Discussion Forum
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of LIBLICENSE
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2012 6:28 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Paying for library database purchases
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])
|
