Recent comments

Very excellent. Finishing up a large document in LaTeX I'm kicking myself I didn't keep follow my initial forays in using RCS. Git would have been even better.

Also, great journal article. Typo in Future Directions: "They would we ragged"

There can be legitimate reasons for non-disclosure during quotation phase, but since most of us are publicly funded, libraries should be willing to share that info, especially once a deal has been signed. Worst case, I can get it via access to information request! I'm always taken aback with how guarded people seem to be about sharing pricing. It's really counter-productive to our shared interests in having a more responsive marketplace.

So I agree, there's been too much secrecy around this. Two dynamics that seem to be at play: 1) "oops, maybe we paid too much" - so don't tell anybody so we don't get exposed as suckers, plus the vendor told us it's top secret!; and 2) "lucky us, they cut us a deal" so keep it quiet and don't rock the boat since we don't want to spoil our special arrangement (let the others pay the higher price - we got our deal!).

It's not entirely unfair and vendors do have a right to have some differences, flexibilities, and so on in their pricing. But it's also not unfair for "consumers" to be more actively engaged in how the market prices through information sharing, organizing, etc.

Too many libraries ruin it for rest of us by having a "take me, I'm your sucker" approach to negotiations. Great post and appreciate you sharing the info.