CHOOSING VENDORS FOR BIBLIOGRAPHIC AND FULL-TEXT SCIENCE DATABASES IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES: A GUIDELINE FOR BUYING IN A CONSORTIA ENVIRONMENT

Many bibliographic databases such as GeoRef are available through several commercial vendors. Quite often academic libraries form consortia agreements to obtain the best price and licensing options on database purchases. This in turn creates a “one package fits all” purchasing environment with cost becoming the controlling factor. However, pedagogical aspects, functionality, currency and most importantly primary audience also need to be considered. This presentation will establish a check list of criteria for database vendor selection and using GeoRef as an example, compare some of the major bibliographic vendors.