Guidelines for Vendor and Product Contacts
Yale University Library
(endorsed by: CDC 10/12/00)

Electronic resources, their producers, and their interfaces do not fall neatly into subject exclusive categories. This is problematic for managing these electronic resources since our selection, acquisition, and public service staff are currently organized mainly along subject specific lines. (For more detail, see: background.)

There are, in general, two aspects of long-term management of electronic resources. (1) Those tasks that are more or less associated specifically with an individual resource, and (2) those tasks that are associated with a particular interface/vendor. Below are guidelines for those individuals agreeing to serve as Product Contacts for individual resources and/or Vendor Contacts for a particular interface/vendor.

Items to note:

• For small vendors or subject specific vendors, the Product Contact and the Vendor Contact may be one and the same.
• A Contact is merely the ensurer that the tasks are done. Work may be divided or delegated among multiple individuals or units.
• Some Vendor Contacts may actually be outside of Yale (as in some consortial deals). There may be slight modifications to the responsibilities in that case.

Responsibilities of Product Contacts

1. Coordination of initial selection, including activation of trials
2. Coordination of funding including possible CERF candidacy
3. Initial license negotiation or Communication with Vendor Contact for addendum to existing vendor license
4. Request for Orbis order record (SML form)
5. Arranging activation (with vendor or via Vendor Contact) (journal activation)
6. Request for cataloging (if necessary)
7. Request individual MARC records for titles in sets of resources
8. Activation announcements / publicity - consider informing Front Door Committee for inclusion as a News item
9. Creation of descriptive web page (if appropriate)
10. Request for addition to appropriate web page lists - work with Front Door Committee as needed
11. Coordination of any needed instruction for staff
12. Assessment of the need for archival treatment of this resource and dealing with any legacy data
13. Development of any guides or tutorials
14. Maintaining general information on a resource and any changes thereto. (e.g. simultaneous user limits, needed software to run, etc.)
15. Tracking ongoing changes to the resource; initiating review of funding as needed
16. IF resource has specific subset of IP addresses for authentication, coordinating with Vendor Contact re: communication with vendor when local changes to IP address list occur.
17. Coordinating cancellation decision and product retirement actions if appropriate

Responsibilities of Vendor Contacts

1. If interface has a license separate from product licenses, initial license negotiation.
2. Communicating any changes in list of Yale IP addresses to Vendor.
3. Coordinating with individual Product Contacts IF some resources have specific subset of IP addresses for authentication.
4. Coordinating with Product Contacts for addendums to existing vendor license for specific resources if needed.
5. Coordination of funding/payments if vendor invoices once for all products (NOT preferred!)
6. Coordinating with Product Contacts for resource price quotes, trials and activations if vendor requests single Yale point of contact. (NOT preferred)
7. Communication with vendor and to yulpub regarding service outages.
8. Subscription to vendor/interface listserv for technical purposes (interface changes, planned outages). IF vendor has only a single listserv for all communications, then coordinate with Product Contacts re: information about instruction, subject/product specific changes, and interface updates as appropriate.
9. If no vendor listserv, maintain appropriately close contact with customer service reps for interface.
10. Maintain (update, or pass to appropriate parties) general information on interface and any changes thereto. (e.g. Simul user changes as applied to vendor as a whole, authentication changes on vendor's part or Yale's part, etc.)
11. Usage statistics sent to Electronic Resources team (Digital Collections Specialist)
12. Communicate with vendor about ebranding options
13. Coordinate with Product Contacts to evaluate reliability of performance and communicate any dissatisfaction to vendor.

© 2008 Yale University Library Electronic Collections Department Last modified: 08/19/03

http://www.library.yale.edu/ecollections/vendorcontactproc.html