What happens when a library has money in its budget left over after the fiscal year end? What is the best way to use it? In this session, librarians from the University of Pennsylvania, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Michigan State University addressed issues surrounding year-end spending.

Here are some background issues:

In these situations, it is best to plan ahead, get vendor quotes if necessary, and get other librarians aware of the issue and solicit their assistance. If time for negotiating runs out, a vendor may refuse to renew a license. Negotiations often occur in concert with other activities such as funding restrictions, vendor changes in database content and pricing, and licensing issues. Strategies for negotiating with vendors include:

• Multiyear contracts are a win/win,
• Combining current purchases with ongoing purchases of updated files,
• Rallying support from all users of multidisciplinary content,
• If possible buying content instead of subscriptions, and
• Starting negotiations early in the year.

How should year-end issues be announced to users? If budgets are tight and cuts will be unpopular, so it might be best to make announcements only to core users, or perhaps simply keep quiet. Another issue is how to explain multiyear deals. There is no guarantee of access after time runs out, so keeping quiet is risky; faculty often assume they have permanent access or ownership of information. The best action is to enjoy access for a limited number of years, instead of losing it altogether. When the limited subscription is up, it might be possible to renew with new funds. It is important to be direct with faculty members; they will usually appreciate honest and concise communication, and some of them may be used to limited access and data coming and going.

There was an enthusiastic discussion after the presentations, and I made a remark from the "Dark Ages" ({1970s) when I worked in the Bell Labs Library Network (BLLN) to point out that year end spending issues are no different in corporate libraries than academic ones. In fact, the BLLN had 10 or more libraries at times, and centralized control of the budgets was quite complex.

Donald T. Hawkins, Conference Blogger