There is a great article in the January 2009 issue of Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals, titled “The Art of the Deal: Negotiation Advice from Library Leaders and Vendors.” I would go so far as to call it essential reading for anyone who negotiates library licenses and database subscriptions. Especially given the current difficult financial environment in which many libraries find themselves.

The article is available on ProQuest, although you’ll have to authenticate in order to gain access to it.

Here are a couple of brief excerpts from the article:

Negotiating is one of the most important skills a librarian can have. Unfortunately, library schools do not uniformly teach the art of negotiating, so many librarians remain woefully unprepared to engage in negotiation.

For this article, we interviewed vendors, content providers, consortium directors, subscription agents, licensing experts, and librarians to broadly map the negotiation landscape. Surprisingly (or maybe not) , each offered variations on the same advice and insights. Most of the comments centered on negotiation for content, tools, or services, which is what we traditionally think of when negotiation enters a conversation. However, remember that we all engage in all types of negotiation all the time – negotiation with user communities; with employees, co-workers, and employers; with funding agencies; with administrators; and more. This article will focus on negotiation for content, tools, and services, but the lessons learned may expand well beyond.