Who Do We Trust?A Vendor Perspective

Charleston ConferenceNovember 4th, 2010

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Dean SmithDirector, Project MUSE

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“Trust is the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest, and cooperative behavior, based on commonly shared norms, on the part of other members of that community.” --Francis Fukuyama, Trust and the Creation of Prosperity

The evolving trust dynamic between publishers, vendors, and libraries…

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Packaging Characteristics Relationship Dynamics

Print-only Strength of print brand*Publisher reputation for quality*

CirculationFaculty recommendations*

Price lists & catalogsDelivery of bound physical object

Reliance on a third partyCompetency

Predictable frequencyAuthenticity/integrity

Print/Digital Access (ownership vs. lease)Pricing policies

Licensing/authorized usersArchiving/PreservationDiscoverability & usage

Depth and breadthBudgets

24/7 communication (1-to-1)Transparency

FlexibilityAvailability

ResponsivenessLearning together

Digital CustomizationDisaggregation (chapters, articles, snippets)

Commentariat (blogs, tweets)Personal brandCrowd-sourced

CollaborationWillingness to experiment

FacilitationContinuing the dialogue

Questions?

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What happens to

“Sports Guy” is the “community authority” with 90,735 posts since 2003

Who is Sports Guy?

Project MUSE Balances the Interests of Publishers and Libraries

Started as a conversation between a publisher and a

librarian

A leading content community in the humanities and social

sciences – 460 journals, 118 publishers, 2000+ libraries

Over $70 million to publishers and more than $80 million in

savings to libraries since 2000

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From the session abstract…

“The currency of both the scholarly publishing industry and academic librarianship is trust.”

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Reliability and responsiveness were the most important factors in building and maintaining trust for librarians and publishers

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Which characteristic is MOST IMPORTANT for building and maintaining trust? (Please

choose only one.)

TransparencyAuthenticityCompetencyConsistencyResponsivenessReliability

Which characteristic is MOST IMPORTANT for building and maintaining trust? (Please

choose only one.)

TransparencyAuthenticityCompetencyConsistencyResponsivenessReliability

MUSE Publishersn=25

MUSE Librariesn=115

MUSE Publishers surveyed value trust over financial arrangements, contract terms, and technical capabilities

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Trust: 70%Contract Terms: 30%

Trust: 52%Technical Capabilities: 48%

Which of these is more im-portant?

Preferential contract termsTrusting the vendor

And which of these is more important?

Vendor tech-nical capabil-itiesTrusting the vendor

When deciding with which vendor(s) you will partner, which is more important?

Favorable financial ar-rangementsTrusting the vendor

Trust: 70%Financial: 30%

Comments from Publishers…

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“Many things are handled through email and ftp sites so trusting in your vendor is very crucial.”

“We view vendors as innocent until proven guilty. In other words, we give them the benefit of the doubt until they act in such a way that erodes our trust.”

“No long term relationship will work without trust.”

MUSE libraries surveyed value favorable financial arrangements, contract terms, and technical capabilities over trust

http://muse.jhu.edu

And which of these is more important?

Vendor tech-nical capabili-tiesTrusting the vendor

Which of these is more im-portant?

Preferential contract termsTrusting the vendor

Contract Terms: 56%Trust: 44%

Technical Capabilities: 59%Trust: 41%

When deciding with which vendor(s) you will do busi-ness, which is more impor-

tant?

Favorable financial ar-rangementsTrusting the vendor

Financial: 58%Trust: 42%

Comments from Librarians…

http://muse.jhu.edu

“The contract "trumps" trust in that it is written (at my institution) with consequences should some parts of it not be fulfilled.”

“Trust is built on a number of factors: competency, reliability, reputation; to me it's the outcome of a well run business.”

“Trust is built over time. An initial relationship with a new vendor is not really based on trust - you do some due diligence but it is partly based on contract and partly leap of faith.”

Questions for Discussion?

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1. What is happening to trust in a down economy between publishers/vendors and libraries?

2. Related to shrinking budgets, does delivering high-quality content to end-users matter as much anymore? Is “good enough” okay?

3. How do we establish and maintain trust given the web’s many disguises?