ERM Review process: Action/Record

Please see ERM Review/Renew/Cancel process for an overview of the ERM Review process being discussed here.

Action/Record represents the need for staff to take certain actions once a renewal or cancellation (or other decision like substitution) has been made in relation to a resource, and to record that this has happened. I understand that renewing Agreements maybe different to renewing Subscriptions, although there maybe overlapping or similar processes

• On Renewal
  • What happens and what needs recording?
  • Agreements currently have “Renewal Priority” (Review, Renew, Cancel). Is this helpful at all?
• On Cancellation
  • Subscription or Agreement?
  • PCA needs to be part of process
  • Communication to vendor and patrons?
  • What other actions/records are required?

My view is that the term renewal is used in different contexts - I am not sure if I have covered all :

1. Renew access to the content for another time period without changing the content.
   In some cases, it has to be stated explicitly (usually prompted by the vendor), in other cases renewal will happen automatically if you do not pipe up - in that case you need an alert so you do not miss the deadline.
2. Renew access for another time period makes it necessary to update agreemnet lines:

• This happens, when the content in the package is not static (e.g. with bib publishers). It may affect more than one agreement, e.g. in the case of takeovers from one publisher to the other.
• This may happen every year even if it is a multi-year deal.
• Usually you get to chose if you want to include the takeovers or new titles in your agreement - this means you will have to check with faculty for a number of individual titles and collect usage stats from the former publishers for your decision. This usally happens in Q4. Usually you have a fixed deadline (e.g. 3 months prior to termination) or the consortia give you an adhoc short notice for replies, so to be able to set a reminder is mandatory - otherwise we would do it in our personal calendar software.
  *After you have concluded the renewal with the publisher, you will have to update the agreement lines:
  • remove ceased or outgoing titles from the non-subscribed content (may happen automatically if you have a curated package from GOKb),
  • record PCA for ceased or outgoing subscribed titles, add or mark new core subscribed titles,
  • do the same to the packages the titles have been transfered from.
    In most cases, new access will start on Jan 1st, so you will have your agreement lines ready round this time. In KBPlus, we used to create a new subscription for the coming year with Jan 1st as starting date in advance, with the current subscription ending on Dec 31st, so you just had to make sur that you exported the updated holdings in a timely manner for end user catalogues.
    As there is no workflow app yet in Folio (e.g. like in Kuali OLE), for the time being I would settle for a reminder function, which would pop up on a future desktop until I mark it as resolved, or at least sends me an email. I guess some actions (like: have asked faculty if canceling is ok on Sep 1st) you could use tags or notes.

Oh, and I think the “Renewal Priority” (Review, Renew, Cancel) is helpful (if it is searchable, of course): Often we discuss titles (“now this is the last time we are renewing this”) but forget about our decision in the course of the year, so it is good to record it.

On Cancellation:
If the agreement does not include PCA, cancellation should be straightforward: Check/update “End date” an change status to “inactive”. Records of cancellation communication (e.g. emails with vendor confirmation) are stored with the agreement. After the “End date”, agreement lines should no longer be selected for export to discovery. Having reminders/workflow items like “awaiting cancellation confirmation”, “update discovery” would be helpful (Tags could serve as workaround).
In case of PCA, I am not sure yet. I would be tempted to close the “old” agreement to preserve the agreement lines and set up a new one for PCA content, but this would mean that I have to duplicate part of the “old” agreement information. On the other hand, if you have to update the agreement lines of a large package (e.g. ScienceDirect with > 1.000 non-subscribed titles = agreement lines which have to be removed one by one ? after cancellation vs. 250 subscribed titles with PCA), setting up an new agreement for PCA probably would be less effort. Also I could use the old agreement as a snapshot to preserve the “historical” access information.