Dear Listservs,
This message is cross posted to various listservs. I apologize for the
duplication. I am writing an article on licensing. I have two
questions.
1) What kind of training do librarians want their sales
representatives to have before licensing products? What kinds of
preparation, training, research, and specialized or general knowledge
should they have before licensing materials to libraries? For example,
I find that new sales reps are not always familiar with regional
consortia. If they have not worked in an academic setting, they may not
know what a proxy server is.
2) On the flip side, for the publishers and/or subscription
agents, what kinds of preparation, training, research, and specialized
or general knowledge should librarians have when starting to license
databases? For example, I would think understanding the sales
commission structure would be helpful so that we don't inadvertently
bypass our salerep. Perhaps an understanding of who does training
versus who does sales? Corporate hierarchy?
If you have ideas, suggestions, anecdotes, please respond to me
directly. I will not quote anyone in the article directly unless
authorized. I will summarize for the list if I get enough responses.
Thank you very much.
Kara Phillips
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