RE: Consortia and consolidation (RE: Information Access Alliance Takes Action on Proposed Wiley Acquisition of Blackwell)

["Rick Anderson" <rickand@unr.edu>]

> While I very much agree with Rick's general point, I do object 
> to his use of the term vendor, when what he is clearly talking 
> about is publishers.

Publishers are vendors, and so are booksellers.  When I said 
"vendors" at the beginning of my message I was referring to 
booksellers; at the very end of my message, I used "vendors" in 
the generic sense, to refer to anyone selling goods or services 
to libraries (inlcluding journal publishers).  My point was that 
consolidation of library purchasing is liable to lead to 
consolidation of selling -- whether the seller is a middleman 
(like a bookseller) or not (like a journal publisher).  My 
apologies if I was less than clear.

----
Rick Anderson
Dir. of Resource Acquisition
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
rickand@unr.edu