CALL’s Vendor Liaison Committee Has Tools You Can Use

The Vendor Liaison Committee (VLC) of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (a committee of which I am a member), continues to put together practical information and useful tools. It is worth having a look at the full VLC page, but a couple of tools that law libraries may find useful:

• Librarian-Vendor Relation – Best Practices
  This is essentially a checklist for libraries to work through when they have a complaint with regard to a publisher or vendor. The focus is on staying factual and professional to maintain a good relationship with your vendors. It also addresses unresolved issues, and gives guidance as to when to approach the Vendor Liaison Committee for assistance and the steps the VLC will take to resolve an issue. I hope my colleagues will have few–if any–opportunities to use this tool!
• Cost Containment Strategies (Word document)
  This is a checklist of things to consider when putting together a cost containment strategy for your library. Is there anything here you didn’t think of already?

If you are responsible for your law library’s budget, don’t forget to fill out the survey the VLC is running, “Financial outlook for Canadian Law Libraries“. The survey closes Friday, March 27th at 5 pm ET.

I spoke with VLC chair Louise Hamel about the survey; while we have already had a fantastic response, some people have commented that it is too early to know how budgets are going to be affected by the economy. We will, therefore, be running the survey again in the future. Please take part now to help us have a good comparison for future surveys.