Hi Jim,
Assuming you already have a longstanding relationship with the vendor, I would ask for limited access for a limited amount of time as a courtesy. I’ve had success getting a username and password for one researcher for 60 days to a primary source collection that we couldn’t afford at the time.
Best,
Anna
Anna Seiffert, MLS
E-Resources & Collection Assessment Librarian
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From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2018 13:55:49 -0700
So imagine there's set of digitized newspapers out there in a database
from a commercial vendor, historical newspapers going back a couple of
hundred years, not much recent content. Suppose it's going to cost a
library $200,000 to acquire that database. Suppose further that the
desire to use that database comes from a *very* small base of faculty.
(You could also suppose that we bought something expensive a lot like
this a couple of years ago for a faculty recruitment, of a faculty
member who's left already.)
My question for this list is, what ways might there be for a library
to facilitate limited use of such a resource without springing for the
whole $200K? Even just good examples of enlightened vendors who've
figured out a way to enable such usage at a reasonable, cheap, or zero
price and who could be made a praiseworthy example of would help.
With thanks,
Jim O'Donnell
Arizona State University