Consortium Director's Report

By James Wiser, Consortium Director

The fall renewal period went more smoothly than I expected with the new procurement system (ConsortiaManager), and thanks to all of you for your patience as we are now fully live with this system. As the spring renewal period is just around the corner, I do want to remind everyone of two features of the new system:

• The old rules still apply once you confirm an order in the system: once you confirm an order or renewal in the system, you cannot retract it. The orders you and we place are sent almost seamlessly to our vendors, and usually all I do is confirm with our vendors that you submitted the order before I sign an agreement confirming these orders. This can all now happen in a matter of minutes. If you change your mind about an order, it makes our consortial workflow exceedingly complicated, so please be sure your library knows what it wants before submitting orders in the system.
• ConsortiaManager defaults to putting all your college’s subscriptions on the same invoice, and to split out databases on different invoices is much harder than it was with the old system. In fact, I have to actually cancel the order and begin again. If you need things invoiced separately, please email me almost immediately so I can know before I generate the invoice. You also have the option of choosing for a database or resource to be “billed separately,” which means I will place that database on a separate invoice.

Spring renewals will be available in the system on Friday, February 28th. The deadline to complete your renewals in the system will be Friday, May 8th. Once these renewals are available, ConsortiaManager will send an email notification to the person(s) you have identified on your campus as responsible. You may wish to log in to the system before February 28th to make sure the person identified in the system as managing these renewals is still the best person.

I’m looking forward to seeing so many of you at the Dean’s and Director’s meeting in Sacramento in March!

Respectfully submitted,
James