Co-Branding for Library Resources

Recently, more database and ejournal vendors have allowed their products to be “co-branded” by campus institutions.  Knowing that there has been a growing interest in the possibilities for co-branding, and wanting to facilitate campus and systemwide use of this opportunity, the CDL initiated an informal process to assemble information about:

1. vendors who have the capability
2. existing technical limitations
3. campus preferences for messages

The Resource Liaisons were asked to find out which database and ejournal vendors allowed branding.  They learned that in some cases, vendors allowed only one brand for all of the campuses.

The CDL then asked the Users Council to query their libraries about possible wording preferences.  The survey and discussions revealed that:

1. The concept of payment should ideally be included in the message.
2. The greatest impact would result from the individual campuses being named as the providers when possible, and for the UC Libraries to be named as the provider when the vendor allowed only one brand.

When the vendor has the option to name campuses individually, the wording would be something like, “Access paid by [campus library name]” and when the vendor is able to provide only one message, the wording would be something like, “Access paid by the University of California Libraries.”

SOPAG reviewed the assembled information and converted the suggestion to a formal recommendation.  The CDL will coordinate requests to the vendors to add or change campus library co-branding.  In addition, the CDL will add wording to the Technical Requirements documentation for vendors and communicate this change to them.

Thanks to Resource Liaisons, the Users Council, and SOPAG for their help in investigating and resolving this issue.