 Welcome to Encompass Live. I'm Emily Nimsacant, filling in for your regular host, Christa Burns. Encompass Live is the Nebraska Library Commission's weekly online event. We cover NLC activities and other library-related topics, and they are presented by NLC staff and guests. The free one-hour sessions are offered every Wednesday at 10 a.m. central time and include a mixture of presentations, interviews, book reviews, web tours, mini training sessions, and Q&A sessions. Today we have Susan Nicely here to talk about discount shopping with the Nebraska Library Commission. Thank you, Emily, and hello everyone. As Emily said, my name is Susan Nicely and I'm on the online services librarian here at the Nebraska Library Commission. I'm going to talk today about the discount purchasing programs, discount programs available through the Nebraska Library Commission, and I wanted to start with our mission just because I think that the discount program really does fit in with our mission. The mission of the Library Commission is statewide promotion, development, and coordination of library information services, and we also serve as an advocate for the library and information service needs of all Nebraskans. So when you think about it, one of the biggest challenges faced by libraries throughout the state is funding tight budgets, having to try to get as much as you can for as little as possible since budgets are very tight these days. And so what we at the Commission try to do is facilitate that. Anything that we can do here to try to make libraries and librarians jobs easier and librarian libraries in the state better able to meet the needs of citizens that's what we want to be helping with. So the discount program does fit in very closely with our mission I believe. There are really three parts to our discount purchasing program. There are discounts on databases and e-resources and this is probably the most widely known component of our discount program. Many people take advantage of it, many libraries take advantage of it. We also provide discounts on books and supplies and that is something that I don't think quite as many libraries are maybe aware of and also on conferences and so I do want to especially for people who are new to Nebraska who might be listening to this recording I want to provide some background information on the discount database discount program but I also want to take this opportunity to publicize our discounts on books and supplies and our discounts on conferences. This page just shows you our discounts on databases and e-resources index page and so I am going to go ahead and switch out to that page so I can actually show it to you live here. This is the page where we list all of the database discounts that we have available. The page as you can see is alphabetical and we try to cross reference products not only by vendor name but also by a specific database or resource name so hopefully however you're thinking about the product whether you're thinking are there discounts on EBSCO databases we'll have EBSCO listed in the E-section or maybe you're thinking about a specific EBSCO database we'll also have databases listed by specific product names so there are a couple of ways you can use this list. This list is probably primarily of interest to librarians who may be new to the state who want to get an overview of which products we have some sort of a deal with which vendors we already have a working relationship with. This is a great place to come to see what some of the options are. I'm just going to go ahead and jump quickly into one of the pages just so you can get a sense of what type of information you'll be able to find online. So I'm going to go ahead and click on Plumbia University Press and you'll see here not only is the vendor listed but also some of the specific database products in this case they're clumped together since they typically use the name Columbia at the beginning of the product name but that's not always the case so just going in to look when we have a particular deal with a vendor we'll provide a descriptive information on the databases that are included in the program. In this case we do have pricing that we put up on our website we don't always put pricing up because not all vendors want their discounted pricing available on the open web for their competitors to see. In this particular case it was okay with Columbia so we do have the pricing listed. You can see that they offer Nebraska libraries a 20% discount I believe off of list price. Yeah 20% discount off of this price. When I can I do try to include the list price as well so you just have a sense of what the discount is. Scrolling down towards the bottom of the page you will have more detailed information such as what the subscription term is. If there are order deadlines you'll have links to order forms, licensing agreements, instructions for how to proceed with an order for the product, information on how you can request a trial on a product if we're not sponsoring a statewide trial on it but you'd like to try it out before you consider ordering it. We'll have that information, tech support. So that's pretty typical of what you'll find on one of our pricing pages. Okay here we go we're back in our slideshow. Did I lose the little window? There we go. Okay just to give you a little bit of background about how the database discounts work. Many times vendor will offer us a straight percentage off discount. For instance Columbia University Press offered us a 20% discount off of list price. Facts on file offered us a 10% discount off of list price and then some database vendors such as SIRS will actually construct pricing that's really customized for our particular constituents. We have a lot of small K-12 schools in the state more than in other states and so their typical pricing didn't really lend itself to being affordable for our small schools and so they did come up with a special pricing for K-12 libraries with fewer than 300 students. That's something that you won't find offered in a lot of other states so in that case it's really unique to us here in Nebraska. Sometimes we work directly with a vendor and we have a deal with them that they have made specifically with us. Other times vendors will offer the same discount through a lot of different library networks and consortia in the United States and Columbia University Press I believe is an example of that Oxford University Press so they will approach many different library networks and they have a discount that they're willing to offer and it's the same for all networks so some of them are really customized for Nebraska and others they're going to be sort of generic for all different library networks across the United States so sometimes we have a little bit more flexibility with some discounts than we do some of those other more widespread discounts. We also often have situations where a vendor agrees to offer us a discount but the discount amount is contingent on the number of libraries that we're able to get to subscribe to a particular product and those are a little bit more tedious to put together. EBSCO is a good example of this. EBSCO will often offer database trials in the spring and the fall. We make those trials of specific products available to all Nebraska libraries but then what they do is they will say we'll offer you this discounted pricing as long as we have five new subscriptions as a result of this trial so that means a library that's never subscribed to an EBSCO product subscribes to one of the products featured in the trial or that library that subscribes to EBSCO products subscribes to a new product as a result of the trial so those are a little bit difficult because we don't always know whether we're going to get the discount until after we find out who's interested sometimes the discount changes depending on how many libraries are interested and so we have to do a little back and forth negotiating double checking with libraries to see if they're still interested based on the price we're able to achieve so that's something that we do in both the spring and the fall with EBSCO and we go through similar processes with some other vendors so those discounts are a little bit more they're not a quite as straightforward or clear-cut as some of our other ones. Finally we also do cooperate with other library networks. This is nice in situations where another network has a deal already set up with a vendor. Some of these networks serve more than one state for example BCR serves Colorado and a number of other states surrounding Colorado. Lyrasis which used to be solanet serves a lot of states started out in the southeast and now it extends up the eastern coast. So some of these other networks they have so many libraries that are members that they are able to get bigger discounts than we might be able to based on the number of libraries we in Nebraska could bring to the table so it works out really well for us to piggyback with them on their deals. Sometimes we don't have quite as much control in these situations for instance the subscription term might vary from what we typically use. There's a little bit of back and forth you know making sure that our members are going to be able to get on board with those discounts but it also brings a lot of benefits to our members especially if there's a product that maybe one or two libraries in Nebraska are interested in. We don't really have enough libraries to bring together to get a good discount but if we piggyback with another state or network it benefits us and it may also benefit the other state because it may bump their numbers up a little bit more so that they can get a bigger discount so we try to do whatever we can to arrange database discounts. A little bit more about the database discounts that we coordinate. As I mentioned earlier when we were looking at pricing for Columbia University Press products we will publish pricing to the website if the vendor allows it. If not you'll usually see a note there that says please contact us for pricing and we'll include an email address phone number for you to use to get in touch with. It's usually me or Jeanette Powell who can provide you with pricing. One of the things that we do in conjunction with the database discounts is we do do centralized billing for vendors if more than one library subscribes. That's something that we can do here that benefits the vendor so that will sometimes make them more willing to provide a discount to our library since we're saving them some work. What that means is the vendor only has to invoice the Nebraska Library Commission for the total amount of the subscriptions entered into by our libraries and then we in turn will pay the vendor directly so they only have to worry about one financial transaction. What we do then is we turn around and we invoice the individual libraries and then the libraries pay us for the products and that does give libraries a little bit more flexibility. Sometimes libraries want to pay for a product right away so we can sometimes invoice them early or maybe they need to wait a month, maybe a little bit longer than the vendor would like and we can often accommodate that whereas the vendor might not be so willing so it does make things a little bit more flexible for our libraries. One of the things we do to try to make this more manageable however is we do try to keep the subscriptions on standard terms and so we usually work with two terms. Our preference has always been July 1st through June 30th but we also have set up some subscriptions to run January 1st through December 31st. This just streamlines the process on our end so we know when to start looking for the renewal process to start. It keeps the billing so that it doesn't occur throughout the year hopefully for the sake of Doreen or business manager who does it all. So you will see that we are often the discounts do require a July 1st to June 30th term or a January 1st through December 31st term. Sometimes we do have libraries that are interested in subscribing midterm and many times it is possible to get a pro-rated midterm subscription. We'll just set it up so that it starts next month and then it runs until the end of the term June 30th or December 31st and then we get that library on the cycle with the other libraries that are also participating in that particular deal. So that is something that you will notice. Finally I just want to point out and this is something that we can do because we are a state library agency as opposed to a non-profit network or consortia like some of the other networks that cover other parts of the country. We are able to pass the entire discount on to libraries and there's sometimes surprises vendors because they're used to working with networks that they're not trying to make a profit but they do have to cover their expenses and so oftentimes vendors will say okay we're going to provide a 10% discount. The library can get 5% and then the network can keep 5%. In those cases we will pass the entire 10% discount on to the library so that's something that we can do because we are a state agency and we're not trying to raise any money to cover our own expenses as a result of these deals that we're arranging. We're really able to do it because it fits our mission and it helps us accomplish our goal of making things easier for libraries. Before we move on I just want to check and see if there are any questions. If anybody has any questions please feel free to ask them or type the question in the question box. We do have your microphones muted right now if you have one so if you want to ask your question over the microphone go ahead and click the raise your hand icon and we'll see that you have a question that way. I'll go ahead and go on for now and I'll check back for questions later. The next component of our discount program I want to talk about is our discounts on books and supplies. As I said I don't think that as many people are aware of these discounts as are aware of our discounts on databases and so that's something I definitely didn't want to promote today. I'm going to go back to our page that shows you the list of databases that we offer discounts on and I just want to point out at the top of this page we do have shortcuts to our other discount programs so you've got discounts on books and supplies up here and discounts on conferences so those are shortcuts. You can always get to the other two portions of our discount program. So I'm going to click on discounts on books and supplies and then you'll just notice at the top of this page you have links back to the discounts on databases and links to discounts on conferences so we do try to keep it sort of circular so you can get to the other discounts as well. These discounts are with usually library supply vendors and book jobbers. Oftentimes the way these come about is the book jobber or the supply vendor will approach us at the library commission and ask if they can through us promote a discount. They often call it for your member libraries and so we consider any library in Nebraska a member. You don't have to go through any formal process to be considered a member so sometimes the wording the vendors use sounds a little bit funny just in terms of how we do things here in Nebraska but anyway you're all members of the Nebraska Library Commission so one of the reasons vendors do this is because they know that we do have streamlined ways of communicating easily and quickly with all the libraries in the state and so it's a good way for them to get word out about their product and promote their product by offering a discount. They know then that we will publicize it through our mailing list through our blog through other publications so for them that that that reach makes it worth them offering a discount. The one way in which the discount on books and supplies program differs a bit from the database program is that transactions usually occur directly between the library and the vendor so we have information about the discounts listed on this page but then the library contacts the book jobber or the supplier directly to make their purchases. This is fine the only downside is that we don't always know which of these discounts is being used unless someone has a problem and they contact us about it we don't necessarily know if you know one of the vendors is not living up to the terms of their discounts that they offer so if you do ever have problems be sure to let us know. The other thing to be aware of is that often these vendors or book suppliers will provide a particular what they call a discount or promotional code and so that is something that you have to take note of on this page and then you will have to mention that discount code or type it into the website so that you'll get the discount. Often there'll be sales and promotions that these vendors are offering and most of the time I think in all cases they will give you whichever discount is more if they're having a promotion on a product and that discount is more than the discount they offer through us they'll give you the sale price so that's something just to watch out for but I think that they're all pretty good about trying to get to the best price. Many of these discounts have to be quote-unquote renewed on an annual basis basically that just means we contact the vendor or they contact us and say okay here's the new code for the next year all the terms are the same or I'm gonna make these slight variations in the terms so occasionally you know one of those will get away from us and then a library will call and say oh this looks like it's expired can you renew it so we always do that quickly we try to stay on top of that. Other discounts were presented several years ago and they didn't have an expiration date and so they're still up there and so I'm in those cases you know there hasn't necessarily been any change for several years. I mentioned the fact that we often don't know which of these discounts are being used and what people's experiences are. Some of you may have seen that I posted a message to the trial mailing list a couple weeks ago asking for feedback asking librarians to let me know which of the discounts on books and supplies they used and what their experience was like and I actually got 21 responses which to me is very good I'm sure there are many more than 21 libraries out there that take advantage of it but the fact that 21 people took the time out to respond to me I thought that was a good representative response and lets me know that people are using it and so just just out of to give people an idea of which discounts are being used I just tallied what people told me and you'll see lots of the libraries who responded said they used Highsmith, Demco and some librarians actually indicated what they purchased through the particular suppliers so barcodes, card pocket, spine labels, label protectors, etc. I specifically want to point out the Ingram discount that's pretty significant it can be the percentage discount varies on type of books but it can be up to 41 and a half percent so we do have a number of libraries that use that Ingram discount in order to save money on books. We also have some libraries that take advantage of software choice which is a discount that's actually arranged by the Nebraska Department of Education but libraries and schools can get discounts on software and a virus software, Microsoft products, etc. so you can see a good representative sample of what some of our libraries are taking advantage of. The final discount I want to mention is discounts on conferences. Every year for as long as I've been here we've been offering discounts on information today conferences. This is something that information today this is an opportunity that information today makes available to many different library networks and consortia across the country and again they're always talking about members you can make this you can make these discounts available to your members and then they say you can consider members as broadly as you wish and so every year we will put up information about discounts on computer and libraries, registration fees, internet librarian and web search university. So you can pretty much be sure that there's going to be a discount on our website about these three conferences and the registration fees are discounted over 50% so if you're ever going to go to one of these conferences it's definitely worth going through us. Now again what information today asks in return is that we collect all the registrations and then send them in as one batch so again that's an easy thing for us to do and if that's all it takes for us to save you 50% on the registration we're more than happy to do it. So I just want you to all be aware that those conference discounts are always available as well. This final page just provides you with URLs of maybe different websites. I'll set up the two primary ways you can create libraries and see about this account. The first one is a mail list. You're not a member of the trial mailing list. I would strongly encourage you to join that mail list or make sure someone on your library is a member. That is where we will announce database trials. For instance, if I just go for that database and try to group together for a discount, that information is going to go out over the trial mailing list. After the trial has been in progress that's where I will ask libraries if they're interested in possibly being part of a group and getting discounted price again one of those databases and so that's where the back and forth goes on. We have enough libraries to get the discount or no we don't. Are you still interested in this other price? We'll also post information to the Encompass blog if we have a new discount available or a new trial. So those are the two primary places where you'll see information but again I'd say the trial mailing list is the first and foremost where that kind of information is going to get posted. That is a good overview I think of our discount programs. That's all I have formally prepared to talk about today but I'm more than happy to answer questions if you have them. Go ahead and as I said just feel free to type questions in or raise your hand and I can unmute you. Well if we don't have any questions I think we're going to finish a little bit early today. Hope everyone has a happy holiday and by all means stay safe driving. So thanks for joining us today.