Random vendor assignment in vendor performance evaluation

A vendor evaluation project at the University of California at Berkeley Library, employing random distribution of controlled groups of comparable orders among groups of comparable vendors, is described with emphasis on methodology. Results of comparisons between individual vendors are expressed without identifying names; results also include comparisons between French and British orders, various specialists vs. general vendors, the impact of order difficulty and of requesting rush handling, and the relation between geographical location in the U.S. and vendor performance. Statistics generated cover speed, fulfillment, and pattern of delivery described in various graphs. Data gathering and analysis methods are less complex than with random sampling or retrospective comparison of vendors; reports are not monitored; and interruption in routine procedures is minimal. The methodology can be introduced into virtually any automated or manual acquisitions system, or used in combination with other techniques for monitoring vendor performance.     

Approval vendor selection—what’s best practice?

With the wide variety of vendor services available, discount or other traditional factors may no longer play a predominant role in determining an academic library’s vendor selection. A questionnaire was sent to 291 academic librarians to survey their vendor selection criteria and methods. Using preliminary results from the survey, this paper examines the mix of vendors’ traditional services vs. new services that now enter into the selection decision. Further, it considers differences in practice based upon library budget size. These initial results indicate that the traditional areas of corporate reputation, approval plan management, and acquisitions services consistently receive the highest ratings of importance. The areas covering outsourcing and electronic data transmission are rated higher by those libraries using these services. As more libraries seek these services from their approval vendors, the services will likely increase in importance in librarians’ decision-making processes.     

The evolving approval plan: how academic librarians evaluate services for vendor selection and performance

A survey of 291 academic librarians addressed the question of how libraries choose approval plan vendors, specifically how much emphasis is placed on various approval plan services and product features in choosing between competing approval plan vendors and how vendor performance is rated in those areas. Traditional services, including expertise in managing approval plans, e.g., profiling, and acquisitions services, customer service, and discount rate, along with corporate reputation and business practices, retained their core status. Electronic financial transactions was found to be very important to the libraries already using these services. Outsourcing services, e.g., cataloging or physical processing, with approval plan vendors, although newer, appear established and of considerable interest to some segments. Vendor performance was rated highest in corporate reputation, approval plan management, and in electronic financial transactions. Libraries with approval budgets under $100,000 expressed a degree of satisfaction with approval plan vendors on a level similar to larger libraries.     

An Empirical Test of Two Vendors’ Trade Discounts

In a comparison of discounts between Blackwell North America and Baker & Taylor, acquisitions personnel at Jacksonville State University found considerable discrepancy between the two vendors’ categorization of trade books. Then a recently announced lawsuit against Baker & Taylor (B&T) questioning the application of the trade book category, led to a review of B&T invoices for analysis of trade discounts. This study revealed that the vendor applied discounts from 5% to 40% for books classified as trade on their invoices. Based on that four-month study, the authors project an annual difference of almost $4,000 between actual discounts and the anticipated 40% discount for trade books as defined by B&T.     

Flat or float? a study of vendor discount rates applied to firm orders in a college library

Library book vendors generally provide two types of discount rates to institutions for firm orders: flat—fixed rate for all books, and float—book-by-book discount. A perplexing question for acquisitions departments is which discount scale is better. This article summarizes a study conducted in a medium-sized, public, college library for the purpose of ascertaining if there is a difference in savings between the two schedules. The results indicate that, at Kean College, float rate (0%–33.3%) gains slightly more savings (0.7% of $35,795.84) than flat rate (12%) based on 870 book orders distributed between university presses (38.4%) and nonuniversity presses (61.6%). However, if the flat rate is 13% or higher, for the same distribution, the flat discount is considered monetarily more advantageous. These findings suggest options and flexibility for acquisitions personnel in obtaining the most cost-effective arrangement for the institution.     

Firing an old friend,painful decisions: The ethics between librarians and vendors

The past decade has brought many changes in the relationships between librarians and vendors and in the ethics between them. Foremost among these changes have been the advances in library technology and automation. In the past, the symbiotic relationship between librarians and vendors was relatively simple. Librarians wanted a vendor who could supply library materials efficiently, accurately, and with a good discount. The vendor was expected to be knowledgeable about library trends and needs and to be the party with the business savvy and sophistication to work with publishers. Now, not only do librarians expect vendors to supply materials efficiently and accurately, they also expect technological sophistication in the providing of these materials, automated systems, and service for the systems. This is especially true for the acquisition of serial publications and the needs of automated services such as check-in, claiming, ordering, and invoicing. Librarians now want more than just materials at a reasonable price. They want automated systems and databases for acquiring materials, managing budgets, and servicing collections. This paper will review the historical relationship of the ethics between vendors and librarians. It will explore the information and automation society and how the decline of business ethics in the eighties changed this relationship.     

A knowledge-based expert systems application in library acquisitions: Monographs

The decision-making process in any environment, including the library, is potentially subjective and arbitrary. The impetus for this research has been to eliminate the discretionary component in vendor selection by designing a quantitative decision-making model. Technically, the model is based on the artificial intelligence concept known as an expert system. The model uses rules provided by the expert, policies of the individual institution, and quantitative decision techniques to assign orders to vendors. Advantages to this knowledge-based model are the following: (1) assurance of quantitative objectivity; (2) efficient allocation of limited resources; (3) improved use of personnel time; (4) creation of a database of vendor price structuring; and (5) usefulness as a training resource.     

An approval plan vendor review: The organization and process

A review of five domestic approval plan vendors was organized and conducted during 1986 and 1987 to meet several objectives. These objectives were: (1) to respond to some staff dissatisfaction with the vendor's service; (2) to determine if the budget was being utilized effectively; and (3) to decide if another vendor could provide better service. After completing a literature review, the Collection Development Resource Allocation Subcommittee developed a checklist which was sent to vendors to guide their onsite presentations. Members of the Acquisitions Department, the Humanities and Social Sciences Department, the Science and Technology Department and the subcommittee completed an evaluation form following each vendor's presentation. Staff also had the opportunity to provide an open-ended written response after all vendor visits were completed. The evaluation forms were tabulated and telephone evaluations were conducted with other libraries currently using one or more of the vendors. The Subcommittee and three department heads used the information obtained through these steps to recommend a change in vendors.     

Academic library beta testing of vendor system design and upgrade: Legal aspects and checklists of best practice

Working relationships between vendors and academic libraries have extended from a traditional one of customer and bookseller to the testing of vendor-developed software. This extension has occurred since 1980, the last quarter century. What has changed since 2000 is the addition of tests of vendor/client interface informed by enterprise software that completely alters methodologies for accommodating library requirements for book supply, MARC record supply, and electronic invoices and purchase orders. This paper will examine the technical, administrative, and legal considerations now relevant to beta testing of vendor software by library staff and offer charts and checklists that may make these projects more easily comprehended.     

Managing Customer Relationships

ABSTRACT

The most important thing for a book vendor in managing customer relationships is successfully managing the company's own resources. Book vendors must be able to hire and train staff who understand the changing needs of libraries and who are able to influence the company's strategic direction and daily operation so that these needs are met. In recent years, book vendors have had to go beyond bookselling, and provide technical services to help libraries to become more efficient. This has required new levels of expertise from book vendors, who today work more closely with their customers then ever before.     

Service quality: An unobtrusive investigation of interlibrary loan in large public libraries in Canada

The quality of interlibrary loan services was investigated from the dyadic perspective of the library and the library customer. The study paired the use of a valid, reliable measuring instrument, SERVQUAL, with an unobtrusive approach related to 130 contrived interlibrary loan transactions in 38 large public libraries in Canada. Library measures of quality produced a fill rate of 52% and a turnaround time of 38 days. Customer expectations of quality proved higher than their perceptions of the quality of services they had received. Reliability, the dimension of quality ranked most important by customers for evaluating service quality, scored lowest in performance. Overall attitudes about the public library were higher than levels of satisfaction with interlibrary loan services. The study found a mismatch between library measures of interlibrary loan performance, based on fill rate and turnaround time, and customer measures of quality, based on disconfirmation theory.     

A firm order vendor evaluation using a stratified sample

This paper examines a firm order vendor evaluation done at the Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University. The entire population of firm orders for domestic publications was used as the sample for a controlled study of vendor performance in terms of order fill rate, vendor efficiency, and cost effectiveness. We attempted to ensure the accuracy of our study by stratifying the sample population, and by performing tests for statistical significance on our results. The final results of the survey helped determine the domestic vendor policy at the Eisenhower Library.     

Vendor Training

The article explores the role of vendor training in the long-term relationshio that exists between libraries that ~urchase an integrated online library system and vendors that market ind support such svsterns. Ernohasis is eiven to the res~onsibilitv vendors have to proierly train library so as to'insure successful imple- mentation and use of their online system. Analysis and evaluation of vendor training programs is stressed and suggestions are given for how vendors can possibly improve the training provided to their users.     

Are library vendors doing enough to protect users? A content analysis of major ILS privacy policies

While privacy is a core value of librarianship, privacy standards differ by library and library vendor. These types of guidelines are necessary and useful, but understanding them can be overwhelming. Academic libraries increasingly rely on third-party, cloudbased vendors to manage their systems and to provide access to their collections. When selecting library systems, library staff must understand privacy issues and be aware of how vendors use data. However, libraries do not always have the staffing, time or knowledge, and vendors are not always interested in upholding library values. The project examines the content of privacy policies for popular library systems used by Canadian academic libraries. The research aims to help librarians better understand the policies, to help them make informed decisions about their own library systems. The process used to code the privacy policies and the results of the coding are included alongside recommendations for vendors and library employees. Building on two seminal privacy studies, the methodology is revised for a Canadian context and updated with today's terminology and context, making it adaptable for other libraries and context around the world.     

Promptcat issues for acquisitions: Quality review,cost analysis and workflow implications

PromptCat is a new service offered by OCLC, in conjunction with monograph materials vendors, that provides libraries with a full bibliographic record from the OCLC Online Union Catalog (OLUC) simultaneous to the supply of materials from a vendor. The library's holdings are set automatically on the OLUC record. Because PromptCat eliminates the need for libraries to do individual title-by-title searching and record selection when materials are received, it will streamline local cataloging activities. It may also provide an impetus for libraries to reevaluate local editing practices and determine whether materials can be processed quickly upon receipt in acquisitions rather than in copy cataloging.This article addresses issues relating to PromptCat, including tests of the service conducted at The Ohio State University (OSU) and Michigan State University (MSU), an estimated cost/benefit analysis based on OSU's approval plan, and issues including coordination between OCLC, materials vendors, system vendors, and the library as well as workflow, organizational implications and staffing issues.     

Aiming for continuous improvement: performance measurement in a re-engineered technical services

In 1996 Griffith University Library undertook a major re-engineering of its Technical Services Section. Features of this re-engineering included automation of repetitive processes, vendor supply of USMARC records, and a partnership with the Blackwells Group for supply of shelf ready books and consolidation of serials. The outcome of this process was a reduction in staff numbers in the section from 34 to 17. The new section was organized into two self-managing teams, with each team responsible for all its own functions from acquisitions through cataloging. The change in the section was as much cultural as structural. Team members were actively encouraged to take responsibility for their own work areas and to participate in all decision-making processes. The concept of “continuous improvement” of work processes was emphasized, and a system of performance measurement put in place. Unit costs (i.e., the average cost of adding a book or serial issue to the collection) and labor productivity are measured on a quarterly basis, and turnaround time annually. The methodology for calculating these figures and their use as a management tool is outlined.