[Eril-l] Library Branding on vendor platforms

[Sweeney, Maurine]

I have been mulling something over so please just ignore this email if you are not interested in mullings...and, it might already have been covered on this listserv.

It seems to me that publishers, aggregators in particular, are shooting themselves in the foot by not allowing more real estate for library branding.  I know that many of our faculty, researchers, and students have the impression that the journals they access on campus are *open-access*.  I also know that they are not going to go out and pay for those journals individually through their departments once they see the actual cost, or even pay for one-time article downloads for the most part.  This feeds into the overall perception at our institutions that the libraries don't really provide that many services besides study space and computers.  I should note that I work at an academic health sciences library so our content is almost 99% electronic at this point.  With the libraries as some of the primary customers of these vendors, wouldn't they want to make sure that we continue to get the funding we need to buy their products???  If the perception campus-wide amongst our customers is that we are not providing content-google scholar is or it's open-access, then we are left only with endless spreadsheets and cost-effectiveness reports-not the community support we need to keep our budgets growing to meet price increases, rather than remaining static or being cut.  It seems to me that one solution is to dramatically increase the branding real estate we have on vendor platforms, not some tiny 234x60 image (I'm looking at you, Elsevier/ScienceDirect) that is on the far top right corner.  Or a 50 character limited line for the library to put its name.  Because, to be frank, our patrons DO NOT CARE what platform content comes from, just that they get the content they need.  So focusing the branding on ScienceDirect is sort of pointless.  And, for the most part, the students use whatever platform the librarians recommend anyway.

I know it's not time for a Friday Rant, but this has really been on my mind.  I would appreciate hearing feedback about this from both vendors and other librarians or to be pointed in the direction of research or other information on this topic.

Thank you,
Maurine



Maurine Sweeney
Head of Technical Services
Moody Medical Library/Academic Resources

University of Texas Medical Branch
301 University Blvd., Galveston, TX 77555-1035
P 409.772.2394 F 409.762.9782
E masweene at utmb.edu<mailto:masweene at utmb.edu>

[UTMB_Health_tag_PMS_rgb.png]

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