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| MISS MANAGER | |
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To contact Miss Manager, please write in care of the TSLL Editors |
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Dear Miss Manager:
How do I manage costs? In this area I feel a real inadequacy. I am, after all, a librarian, trained to be able to find obscure passages, construct legislative histories, determine the differences between editions, and uncover places where I can buy the things our library needs. But I have been handed the task of saving money on purchases from our vendors, of keeping an eye on inflation, of looking for the best deal. But what can Ido? For example, we used to have two publications with similar information. They were large sets of about 10 loose-leaf volumes, East Publishing Company’s Definitive Law of Contracts and Lots-a-Lawyers Publishing Company’s Essential Law of Contracts. Now the companies have both come under the umbrella of BigBucks, Inc. BigBucks now publishes only Definitive; and whereas the previous two editions used to cost $1,000 each annually, we started right off paying $3,000 for the single set our first year after the merger, and $4,000 the next. Our patrons need this work. I can’t cancel it. How can I control costs when there is only a choice between overpaying and doing without?
Financially Woeful
Dear Woeful,
You have certainly gone right to the heart of a problem faced by just about every technical services manager in law libraries these days. The problem, as your example illustrates, is severe in many cases. Everyone has a similar, or, I should say, many similar stories to relate. If there is a solution, Miss Manager looks in the same place she looks for a solution to a related and equally difficult problem, that is, the customer service difficulties associated with some, particularly some of the larger, legal publishers since mergers and acquisitions ran rampant in the industry. The consensus among librarians and the logic of business practices point to the decline in customer service and the sometimes egregious price increases originating from a single source: the bottom-line mentality dominating corporate bodies such as BigBucks.
I think most of us understand that the long-term health of a company is dependent on profits. You don’t have to have an MBA to appreciate the need for a company to prosper in order for it to be worth the energy to run it. But there are other long-term considerations that seem to have been undervalued by some of the companies we deal with: good customer service keeps your customers satisfied and likely to increase their business with you; raising prices or charging shipping or adding new releases at rates that are reasonable will tend to keep customers with you and not looking for alternatives. When the most basic needs of good quality information, fair treatment, and reasonable costs are treated as inconveniences by vendors, customers will become dissatisfied enough to seek alternatives.
You should first realize that this is a very common problem, and so there are places to turn for both general help and help with specific difficulties. The law library community is unusually well-served by several outstanding resources in the area of dealing with vendors. The first organization to be named is the American Association of Law Library’s Committee on Relations with Information Vendors (CRIV), whose Web page can be found at www.aallnet.org/committee/criv. This committee and its Web site are so useful that you may find no need to go beyond it. The best thing for you to do initially is to look at the various services provided by CRIV. They have sample letters to be sent to vendors, dispute resolution advice and services, and links to other useful sites. You can go directly to CRIV and ask your specific question, and someone there will at least get you on the road to a resolution. Often enough, CRIV will have heard about your problem already and have some suggestions for you. Or you may be able to glance through some recent CRIV newsletters to see what sorts of issues have come up recently and forestall future financial woes as they relate to legal publishers.
Just a few of the other resources that may be able to help you include:
As to your specific problem, it is also good to keep in mind that solutions do depend upon individual situations. Where there are alternative publications (and we must not neglect the possibility of replacing print publications that seem unique with online resources when possible) they must be considered. The fact that senior partner Myway or kindly professor Oldschool has never used anything but Definitive Law of Contracts and cannot imagine life without it must be taken into account. “A library without Definitive just isn’t a real law library” is the kind of sentiment that pertains. And there certainly will be situations in which that sentiment points to reality. But there will also be times when the sentiment will need to be countered with a view of a different sort.
Legal information still comes from the places it always has – legislatures, courts, scholars, legal publishers – but the method for its dissemination has changed drastically in the past ten years. If your sacred old volumes of Definitive are useful to only a very small percentage of your patrons, then it may be time to confront Mr. Myway and Prof. Oldschool with the facts: it costs us $4,000 annually to retain these volumes; we can get historical information from earlier editions of Definitive and current information from the Up-to-the-Minute Contracts Newsletter, an online publication with weekly updates, for $425 per year. If we don’t make this change, we will have to get rid of $3,575 worth of other material somewhere else in the collection (to which both Myway and Oldschool may respond, “too bad, keep Definitive”, in which case you may need some backup for your decision.) Or, it could be that your library truly must keep Definitive, in which case it will almost certainly need to cancel or scale back on other purchases. But those cancellations or decisions not to order something else should be made apparent to those who gain from the use of Definitive. Since no one can keep up with 50% inflation rates, cutbacks will have to be made somewhere; and where those cutbacks are going to make the biggest impact, they should be discussed. We may here take a lesson from our academic library colleagues who have faced escalating prices in many disciplines, especially in the sciences. Their experience negotiating with core patron groups is something we should tap into.
Getting a handle on your library’s true inflation rate may also allow you to demonstrate to your administrators the dilemma of retaining your current number of publications and controlling costs simultaneously. The individual egregious example (such as the 50% inflation rate for the single Definitive Law of Contracts title) will serve as an illustration. However, if you can show, e.g., that BigBucks, Inc. (1) provides us with 124 titles which are not duplicated elsewhere and for which the information is not easily obtainable elsewhere, and (2) that the inflation rate for those titles has been 12% in each of the last two years, then you will have something concrete to approach the money people with. Which of these 124 titles can we outright cancel, which should we get at any cost, which should we spend a lot of time on finding potential substitute information sources?
As to your worries about the adequacy of your financial abilities, Miss Manager would suggest that you put those kinds of skills into the proper perspective. You listed several things that you do as a trained librarian, and then you seemed to indicate that managing money does not fall into the same category as the others. I would guess that when you first worked in a library you were not perfectly adept at constructing legislative histories or determining the best publishers for particular kinds of material. These are skills you developed by practicing. There is nothing lacking in your skill at managing costs except experience. With the aid at your disposal, especially with your colleagues in similar situations, you have an excellent opportunity to earn that experience under particularly helpful guidance.
Dear Miss Manager:
Years ago I returned from an annual meeting with small gifts for my Tech Services staff back home. These were various freebies offered by the vendors. Somehow over the intervening ten years this has escalated. I now have a bigger staff with higher expectations. I usually buy souvenirs appropriate to the city I visit – mugs or t-shirts or some local gee-gaw – but those don’t come cheaply. This year I scaled back and bought everyone Post-It pads, but there was a considerable amount of grumbling. What should I do?
Mr. Generous
Dear Miss Manager:
I hate Christmas in the office! Things have gotten out of hand. It used to be that someone would bake cookies or fudge and then give everyone a small plateful at Christmas time. Then others started passing out little presents to their friends, but then, so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings, other’s distributed little presents to everyone. As the leader of the group, I felt silly receiving 5 or 6 gifts and not giving out anything, so I began giving out little gifts, too. And then it seemed that if a staff person making less than me is passing out $6.00 gifts, I should be passing out $8.00 gifts; and then ... well, you get the idea. How do I crawl out of this hole (and I know I helped dig it)?
Feeling like Scrooge
Dear Gen and Scroogie,
Miss Manager is going to lay down the law on this one. Avoid gift giving in the workplace. It is the source of much resentment, unhappiness, jealousy, and confusion; not to mention the fact that most people have such appalling taste, but that is another matter. “Avoid” is a mushy word, as Miss Manager is fully aware. Sometimes gifts are necessary and appropriate. But any time expectations are raised or competitions are created, the freely given expression of a generous heart is far removed from the calculation and comparison such an atmosphere encourages. Miss Manager never returns from a meeting or a vacation bearing gifts for the staff. No expectations have been raised, no resentments expressed. Miss Manager trusts that ongoing attempts at making the workplace more pleasant by the improvement of the small daily habits of useful communication (and the occasional homemade treat to be shared in the employee lounge) go much farther than the annual or biennial disbursement of overpriced trinkets toward the creation of good will in the technical services department. Miss Manager is particularly concerned to relieve the burden of Christmas obligations which have made a season traditionally associated with ideas of peace now just as likely to produce anxiety and overextended credit. Encourage your group to simplify. Suggest a grab bag with a price limit; suggest that the group donate to a charity instead; suggest that everyone exchange cookies in lieu of gifts; take them out to lunch if your budget allows and spread as much cheer as it is in your power to spread; but do what you can to stop the escalating gift bombardments. There will be some who are offended by this, but my experience tells me that most will be grateful for the change.
Dear Miss Manager:
Can you help me manage my LIFE? I need help with everything!
Chaotic in Canada
Dear Chaos:
Of course Miss Manager can help. Just follow these suggestions, and everything should be OK:
Miss Manager’s Infallible Weight Control Program
Step 1. Eat less.
Step 2. Exercise more.
Miss Manager’s Sure-Fire Investment Strategy
Step 1. Buy low.
Step 2. Sell high.
Miss Manager’s (actually Richard Feynman’s) Method for Solving Difficult Problems
Step 1. Write down the problem.
Step 2. Think about the problem.
Step 3. Write down the solution.
Miss Manager’s Guide to Living a Meaningful Life
Step 1. Determine the meaning of life.
Step 2. Live according to the principles derived from Step 1.
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