2019 Charleston Library Conference

Library conference sessions often address how to negotiate successfully with vendors, influence product development, collaborate on better processes and content, and build strong vendor relationships. This panel reframes the relationship by doing a deep dive into transformative partnerships between vendors and libraries. The objective of this session is to empower librarians to rethink how they engage with vendors, providing concrete examples, techniques, and mental models for transforming relationships. Four speakers from four libraries will explore the inner workings of their partnerships with vendors, both in the software-as-a-service and the publisher realms, and how all parties collaboratively reframe the traditionally transactional vendor/customer relationship. The Massachusetts-based Five Colleges Consortium is collaborating with EBSCO to develop and implement the FOLIO open source library services platform. The Ex Libris Users Group of North America (ELUNA) sponsors product working groups composed of librarians who work directly with Ex Libris and its global customer base to develop Alma, Primo, and other cloud-based systems in directions that libraries want. Speakers from the University of Rochester and the University of Connecticut will talk more holistically about vendor relationship management, effective ways of working with vendors in any context, and framing partnerships in ways that make sense to everyone. In addition to the usual Q&A period, audience members will be encouraged to contribute examples of successful and unsuccessful collaborations with customers and vendors. Attendees will leave this panel energized and with the tools to transform their vendor relationships.