Susan at Wabash College wrote: Richard, you asked if any of us ever try to work with publishers/producers/small distributors. My answer is YES, and I did so in yesterday's case . I'm not necessarily opposed to the concept of tiered pricing for these kinds of films, but I *do* object to having all colleges and universities lumped together. I mean, c'mon. With our FTE of 865, should we *really* have to pay the same price as a Berkeley, Ohio State or Rutgers? Heck, should we even have to pay the same price as Vanderbilt or Butler? To me, it should be the number of potential users, not status as "college or university." So I do ask. And many times the producer/distributor understands and makes a reasonable alternative offer. So I say it's worth asking.
Judy replied: Yes, and whenever someone from a small liberal arts college expresses surprise that University of Florida doesn't have a basic service that their courses use and depend on, I can explain that it's because they price by the number of potential users, i.e. enrollment. Susan again: Fair enough. I wasn't actually proposing that these producers and distributors have an ever-upward pricing scheme, though, where they charge more and more for higher and higher enrollments. I was simply suggesting that tiered pricing schemes almost always seem to have THREE components -- home use, public library/community college, college/university -- and when the college is very small, I think it makes sense to ask for something comparable to the PL/community college rate. In a couple of cases, I work with vendors who do just that for us. In yesterday's situation, the offer came in between the standard college/university and public library. Susan at Wabash VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
