Description
Business librarians are increasingly asked to defend high-cost, specialized resources to procurement offices that expect competitive bidding, interchangeable products, and clear evidence of value. Yet many business information tools are effectively sole source products: proprietary datasets, unique company and market intelligence, exclusive analyst content, and platforms with no true competitors. Presented jointly by a business librarian and an acquisitions librarian, this talk will explore common issues and strategies for writing effective justifications and communicating collection decisions to procurement offices outside of the library. Erica & Sam will discuss how librarians can articulate uniqueness, and distinguish between overlapping and non-substitutable resources, beyond "faculty like it". The session will also examine common procurement questions and defense strategies. Attendees will leave with actionable language, collaboration strategies, and advocacy techniques for libraries communicating with outside procurement offices, and advocacy strategies for transparent, defensible collection development decisions.
Keywords
Eresources, procurement, business databases
Presentation Type
Panel Presentation
Recommended Citation
Freed, Erica and Bobbit, Samantha, "Speaking Procurement: Defending Specialized Business Resources" (2026). Midwest Business Librarian Summit (MBLS). 5.
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/mbls/2026/2026/5
Included in
Speaking Procurement: Defending Specialized Business Resources
Business librarians are increasingly asked to defend high-cost, specialized resources to procurement offices that expect competitive bidding, interchangeable products, and clear evidence of value. Yet many business information tools are effectively sole source products: proprietary datasets, unique company and market intelligence, exclusive analyst content, and platforms with no true competitors. Presented jointly by a business librarian and an acquisitions librarian, this talk will explore common issues and strategies for writing effective justifications and communicating collection decisions to procurement offices outside of the library. Erica & Sam will discuss how librarians can articulate uniqueness, and distinguish between overlapping and non-substitutable resources, beyond "faculty like it". The session will also examine common procurement questions and defense strategies. Attendees will leave with actionable language, collaboration strategies, and advocacy techniques for libraries communicating with outside procurement offices, and advocacy strategies for transparent, defensible collection development decisions.