“So we’re looking to create that space for them, bring their suppliers into the HE world and also give them access to HE suppliers. We’re also trying to be more easily accessible to schools to assist them to achieve more value for money. A school buyer is often not a procurement person. They just need to know if something is compliant, so we’re exploring ways of making it simple for them to work via SUPC. Whilst these changes may have limited impact on library procurement, Gavin indicated that it was possible that school librarians could benefit, but it would be speculative to say how much.
Getting specialised Usually the SUPC framework relies on larger agents and aggregators rather than publishers to reduce the number of relationships SUPC members have to deal with. But the new framework aims to provide new flexibility. Gavin said: “We are trying to expand the scope of what a library can do through this framework and we’re looking at specialised suppliers. However, for some universities a special- ised supplier is actually a regular partner. For example, we have specialist arts universities who use a range of suppli- ers who, as an extreme example, might only supply exhibition catalogues. These suppliers tend to be more embedded in print than digital because the subject matter doesn’t tend to suit digital as well, and they may have been using them for years and not want to cast aside a valued relationship.”
Internal pressures
Some increased workload on buyers comes from internal requirements within institutions. “They won’t be spending huge amounts of money with some suppliers every year. They probably don’t need to worry about the procurement regulations. But they’re spending enough that they need to jump through certain
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hoops with procurement and finance within their own institution to ensure responsible spending. Often that can be as little as £5k-£10k a year, at which point librarians need to start being able to produce quotes or justifications. Contracts can sometimes get stuck with procure- ment for quite a long time, but if that sup- plier is on our framework, it speeds that process up because that supplier will have been checked and vetted. We’ll have con- sidered issues such as financial stability, insurance, and responsible procurement as well as their technical capability.”
AI risk 1 New regulatory requirements are not the only new pressures and risks buyers face now. “We’re seeing some publishers pushing new clauses into agreements making universities responsible for the actions of all of their users,” Gavin said. “If a student puts copyrighted material into AI they have the potential to hold the university responsible. Students do these things sometimes without realising that there may be a consequence, as do some academ ics, so it can be quite a challenge. “Librarians have a limited amount of
time. If they don’t get their contracts sorted out, they risk losing access to resources so eventually they’re forced to sign something they don’t want. Jisc has given some guid- ance on how to push back, and we’ve made sure such clauses can’t be added through this framework.”
AI risk 2
Another issue is that some aggregators have AI products of their own which publishers may be nervous about. “Aggregators need to be very careful not to upset publishers,” Gavin said. “We’re concerned that if an aggregator’s AI prod- uct breaches their publisher agreement then that content could be pulled from the platform, to the detriment of our members. So we’re keen to make sure that would also be a breach of terms and conditions for the framework as well.”
Cyber security
“In light of several high-profile inci- dents in the last 12 months, a concern this year is cybersecurity. There’s always going to be a risk that anyone can be hacked and we’ll never stop the attempts. However, we do want to make sure that all of our suppliers have appro- priate third party audited accreditations in place. We’re making sure our mem- bers have that confidence and can see what those accreditations are.” But he says it is a fine balance: “If you ask suppliers to explain, in writ- ing, all of their internal cyber security measures then you are asking them to invite more risk on themselves, almost providing a helpful manual for any ne- farious parties wishing to attack them. We have to accept that some questions may not be responsible to ask even if the motives are pure.” BG
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