There’s been quite a bit of discussion about various publisher issues, so I thought I should randomly summarise some of my observations

• There are a lot of publishers reaching out to various people in the university including academics, librarians and SLT members (used to be called SMT)
• Feel free to ignore them entirely.  Some of the offers are quite simply irrelevant noise we don’t need to distract ourselves with right now.  In LAC we are trying to filter out the not so useful from the useful, but we may not always get it right. Some of it will be useful and some of it will be snake oil
• I have said to our team we should focus on what is actually needed.  We are hearing some content from Cengage, McGraw-Hill and Pearson is needed.  But not necessarily all of it. Some of these vendors will be trying it on with cute offers not necessarily in UC’s best interests
• Some offers are good and worth us following up.  Recent examples Harvard and Elsevier (never thought I’d say that) but again there is the risk we could be wasting time on something that just isn’t useful for UC or there is some ulterior motive (I like to think I’m not normally a suspicious person by the way)
• Some of the cute offers we are being presented with may likely favour the publishers and not necessarily UC
• Some of the conversations we will need to have with the likes of Cengage will not be easy
• Remember the option to scan up to 50% (not great right now with no access to the physical collection)
• We are in contact with the likes of CAUL/CONZUL to see what is happening with other libraries and where we can join forces
• I realise a lot of academics won’t be in the headspace to have these conversations right now but please look out for opportunities wherever possible to include mention of the benefits of OERs.  Short and long term the model of providing 3 user access eBooks with DRM at extortionate prices is ridiculous for obvious reasons especially for classes of hundreds of students.  Let’s sow seeds in minds now about open access alternatives as that’s going to be a conversation UC has to have at some point, which may come sooner rather than later.

Please continue to let us know at acquisitions@libr.canterbury.ac.nz what is needed.