-----Original Message-----
Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2002 12:27:15 -0500
From: Vince Jenkins (Maricopa County Community Coll. District)
<vince.jenkins_at_domail.maricopa.edu>
Subject: Traditional vendors vs. local bookstores
I need a quick overview of academic acquisitions depts.' use of local
bookstores and online vendors vs. traditional book jobbers. (And
please bear with me for just a couple of minutes.)
We're a district of 10 community college libraries and a centralized
tech. services center, including an acquisitions unit that processes the
colleges' purchase orders. We use a variety of established vendors
(some for many years) who give us discounts of up to ca. 30%, but
average about 12%, in accordance with their responses to invitations to
bid for our business. We are located in a urban area (Phoenix, Ariz.).
Our annual expenditures are in 7 figures.
When our libraries see how inexpensive local bookstores or online
suppliers *can* be for certain current or popular materials, they
compare (however unfairly) those prices with the discounts from our
traditional vendors for academic and hard-to-find titles and conclude
that our traditional vendors' discounts are unsatisfactory. Local
bookstores cannot fulfill all the needs of a community college library,
but it's hard to find accounts of other libraries' discounts from
traditional vendors--we're never sure that the discount structures we
get are as good as possible. And they do suffer when compared, solely
by cost, to local prices.
Are we following archaic acquisitions practices in sticking with our
traditional vendors? Should we ask them for significantly better deals
even though they already operate on slender margins?
I would appreciate your suggestions or experiences concerning the mix of
established book vendors and local or online interests used for your
acquisitions.
Thanks.
***********************************************************************
Vince Jenkins
Coordinator, Library Technical Services
Information Technology Services
Maricopa County Community College District
Tempe, Ariz. 85281-6942
(ph) 480.731.8774
(fx) 480.731.8787
vince.jenkins_at_domail.maricopa.edu
(1) -------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 08:11:36 -0500
From: Debra Thomson (Rhode Island College Library)
<DThomson_at_ric.edu>
Subject: Re - Traditional vendors vs. local bookstores
Traditional library vendors are crucial to library acquisitions, but
they are no longer the only answer for libraries seeking the perfect blend
of fulfillment, service, and discount. It is true, online vendors and
local bookstores can offer better discounts on some, if not many,
items. If your institution makes it easy for you to deal with these
vendors, there are many instances when it pays to go for the quick
fulfillment or the better discount.
I am using Amazon.com for rush orders. If they say that the book will
be shipped in 24 hours, and speed is of the essence, there is no reason not
to give them the order. My traditional vendors are simply not
equipped to do this with the ease that Amazon offers.
Also, I am now looking at discounts on large-ticket items such
as art books. Amazon tells you up front what the discount is on each
title. My traditional vendors "guarantee" a discount for most academic
or trade publishers, but you don't know until the invoice arrives
whether each book actually received the discount.
So, traditional library vendors could learn some things from online
vendors. (I use Amazon as an example, but I also use ABE, Alibris,
Library Video, and others who offer the ease of online ordering
combined with the certainty that an item is actually available and at a
set price.) I must also say that I would not give up my traditional
vendors.
They are learned in the needs of libraries, and have actual customer
service representatives who answer their e-mail or their phone whenever
you need them! (Try that with an online vendor) Also, the ease of
electronic ordering from these vendors using my library's acquisitions
module is beyond measure. With other vendors, work is duplicated
when you have to order the book as a separate function from entering
the order information in your database.
The larger issue here which needs to be discussed is the effect of the
online vendors on book pricing and customer expectations. Traditional
library vendors offer value-added services which should not be
overlooked in the quest for bigger discounts. But with a 7-figure
budget, I think you should be getting much better than 12%!
Thank you for bringing up this topic for discussion. It merits closer
examination by all of us who order books for libraries.
Debra Thomson
Supervisor, Order Department
Rhode Island College Library
600 Mt. Pleasant Ave.
Providence, RI 02908
Phone 401-456-9651 * Fax 401-456-9646 * E-mail dthomson_at_ric.edu
(2) -------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 07:39:20 -0600
From: John Williams (Wichita State Univ.)
John.Williams_at_wichita.edu
Subject: Re - Traditional vendors vs. local bookstores
We sole-source from Blackwell's and receive an average of 16.5% ATB for
STO's, firm orders and the approval plan. We also garner substantial
savings from them with the paper preferred option on the approval plan.
It is at their option as to which portion of our business they would prefer
not to handle. Currently, they decline the Biomed approval plan
(Majors), the Art approval plan (Worldwide) and Juvenile Lit
(Baker & Taylor).
Local bookstores as well as University bookstores can afford a more
substantial discount because they provide no services (MARC record
loading, EDI accounting, claiming, online request/order, and reliable OP
searching for really difficult titles).
I have no specific advice to give you. If you're spending over a
million dollars per year on just books, you can probably do even
better than I do currently.
John H. Williams
Acquisitions Mgr./Technical Services
316-978-5134
(fax) 316-978-3048
Campus Box 68
Wichita State University Library
Wichita, KS 67260-0068
(3) -------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 11:34:59 -0700
From: Nancy Hill (Univ. of Texas El Paso)
<nhill_at_LIBR.UTEP.EDU>
Subject: Re - Traditional vendors vs. local bookstores
I don't think you're out of step by continuing with traditional vendors.
The discounts may not be as great as you'd get from a local vendor all
the time, but then, you probably can't get a lot of what you need from a
local vendor. You probably have other factors that save time
(and thus money) such as on-line ordering and order tracking,
electronic invoicing, and so on. Here, as in my other jobs, the practice
is to rely on a few established vendors who give us as good a fill
rate and as good a discount as possible, and then try to find odd stuff
in local shops or the out-of-print market.
Nancy Hill
Head, Acquisitions & Cataloging
University of Texas at El Paso
500 W. University, El Paso TX 79968
915-747-6722
nhill_at_libr.utep.edu
"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who
cannot read them. " Mark Twain
(4) ------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 15:25:22 -0800
From: Penny Swanson (Douglas College Library)
<swansonp_at_groupwise.douglas.bc.ca>
Subject: Re - Traditional vendors vs. local bookstores
Vince;
We always point out that the cost of an item is not just in its retail
or wholesale price, but also in the cost of staffing. If your staff had
to price compare on every item purchased, the price per item would
escalate incredibly. That would be one of the hidden costs of going to
a variety of vendors, because not every title is discounted the same way
for each vendor. The other hidden cost would be in service. It is
much less staff-time intensive to deal with one or two vendors than
with twenty, not to mention the fact that on-line and local vendors are
not primarily doing business with libraries.
That being said, I do know of one small library in Northern British
Columbia with a relatively small acquisitions budget that acquires all
items through an on-line vendor. Not because of cost, however, but
because delivery time is so much better than any other traditional
vendor.
And, I must add that we, a middle size college library, use on-line
vendors for exactly the same reason, when we need something really
quickly!
Penny
^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
Penny Swanson
Knowledge Access Librarian
Douglas College Library
P.O. Box 2503
New Westminster, B. C.
Canada V3L 5B2
Voice: 604-527-5259
FAX: 604-527-5193
swansonp_at_douglas.bc.ca
Education Council Chair
Voice: 604-527-5384
Received on Mon Dec 09 2002 - 20:27:39 EST