[Eril-l] package renewal dates

[Arndt,Theresa]

Hi Karen –

We’ve done this here with our largest vendors, for the same reason – small staff striving for more efficiency.  I just contacted our reps and worked with them individually one at a time to get things pro-rated so that renewals would align with our fiscal year.  Since our fiscal year runs July to June, I’ve left alone renewals that were on the calendar year (January through December), since those are easy for us to adapt to internally. Also, when we start new subscriptions we sometimes will ask them to pro-rate the first year, so they are aligned.  I’m not sure I’d want ALL our renewals at once on July 1.  Having a batch on July 1 and another batch on January 1 works pretty well for workflow and budgeting purposes.  I highly recommend this approach, as it has made budgeting more predictable.  Last year we were asked to produce a “zero-based budget” request and it was a lot easier due to the prior work aligning our renewal dates for most things.

I recommend you just start with one or two vendors and go from there.  It requires some work up front, but makes things easier to track in future years.  Keep careful records of the pro-ration arrangements, so you can make sure you are charged correctly the following year.  We keep track of everything in our ERM CORAL, which has a way to designate a payment as “prorated”, and has space for notes.

- Best, Theresa

Theresa Arndt, MLS
Associate Director for Library Resources and Administration
Library and Information Services
Dickinson College
P.O. Box 1773
Carlisle, PA 17013
voice:  717-245-1750
fax:  717-245-1439
arndtt at dickinson.edu<mailto:arndtt at dickinson.edu>


From: Eril-l [mailto:eril-l-bounces at lists.eril-l.org] On Behalf Of Karen Jensen
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2015 3:33 PM
To: eril-l <eril-l at lists.eril-l.org>
Subject: [Eril-l] package renewal dates

This may not be the best list for this subject, but it's been such a great, active list with lots of ideas shared, that I'm going to start here.

I wonder if any libraries out there have worked to get all or most of their electronic package renewal dates to come up during the same month of the year, in order to create more predictable accounting, keep the staff schedules the rest of the year for other activities, minimize the number of interruptions from vendors, etc. In other words, work toward prorating or other means in order to get renewal dates changed to concentrate the work of renewals. I ask because our personnel cutbacks and reduced hours have forced us to look for any possible improvement in efficiency; we all have more to do and need to streamline how we do it. I wondered if someone else has done this and if they have tips for proceeding.

Thanks,

Karen Jensen
Collection Development Officer
Rasmuson Library
University of Alaska Fairbanks
907-474-6695<tel:907-474-6695>
kljensen at alaska.edu<mailto:kljensen at alaska.edu>


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