1. Who Do We Trust?
A Vendor Perspective
Charleston Conference
November 4th, 2010
http://muse.jhu.edu
Dean Smith
Director, Project MUSE

2. http://muse.jhu.edu
“Trust is the expectation that arises within a community
of regular, honest, and cooperative behavior, based on
commonly shared norms, on the part of other
members of that community.” --Francis Fukuyama,
Trust and the Creation of Prosperity

3. The evolving trust dynamic between publishers, vendors, a
libraries…
http://muse.jhu.edu
Packaging Characteristics Relationship Dynamics
Print-only Strength of print brand*
Publisher reputation for quality*
Circulation
Faculty recommendations*
Price lists & catalogs
Delivery of bound physical object
Reliance on a third party
Competency
Predictable frequency
Authenticity/integrity
Print/Digital Access (ownership vs. lease)
Pricing policies
Licensing/authorized users
Archiving/Preservation
Discoverability & usage
Depth and breadth
Budgets
24/7 communication (1-to-1)
Transparency
Flexibility
Availability
Responsiveness
Learning together
Digital Customization
Disaggregation (chapters, articles, snippets)
Commentariat (blogs, tweets)
Personal brand
Crowd-sourced
Collaboration
Willingness to experiment
Facilitation
Continuing the dialogue

4. Questions?
http://muse.jhu.edu
What happens to
“Sports Guy” is the
“community authority”
with 90,735 posts since
2003
Who is Sports Guy?

5. Project MUSE Balances the Interests of Publishers
and Libraries
Started as a conversation between a publisher and a
librarian
A leading content community in the humanities and social
sciences – 460 journals, 118 publishers, 2000+ libraries
Over $70 million to publishers and more than $80 million in
savings to libraries since 2000
http://muse.jhu.edu

6. From the session abstract…
“The currency of both the scholarly publishing
industry and academic librarianship is trust.”
http://muse.jhu.edu

7. Reliability and responsiveness were the most
important factors in building and maintaining
trust for librarians and publishers
http://muse.jhu.edu
Which characteristic is MOST IMPORTANT for
building and maintaining trust? (Please choose only
one.)
Transparency
Authenticity
Competency
Consistency
Responsiveness
Reliability
Which characteristic is MOST IMPORTANT for
building and maintaining trust? (Please choose only
one.)
Transparency
Authenticity
Competency
Consistency
Responsiveness
Reliability
MUSE Publishers
n=25
MUSE Libraries
n=115

8. MUSE Publishers surveyed value trust over financial
arrangements, contract terms, and technical
capabilities
http://muse.jhu.edu
Trust: 70%
Contract Terms: 30%
Trust: 52%
Technical Capabilities: 48%
Which of these is more important?
Preferential
contract terms
Trusting the
vendor
And which of these is more important?
Vendor
technical
capabilities
Trusting the
vendor
When deciding with which vendor(s)
you will partner, which is more
important?
Favorable
financial
arrangements
Trusting the
vendor
Trust: 70%
Financial: 30%

9. Comments from Publishers…
http://muse.jhu.edu
“Many things are handled through email and ftp sites so trusting in
your vendor is very crucial.”
“We view vendors as innocent until proven guilty. In other
words, we give them the benefit of the doubt until they act in
such a way that erodes our trust.”
“No long term relationship will work without trust.”

10. MUSE libraries surveyed value favorable financial
arrangements, contract terms, and technical
capabilities over trust
http://muse.jhu.edu
And which of these is more important?
Vendor
technical
capabilities
Trusting the
vendor
Which of these is more important?
Preferential
contract terms
Trusting the
vendor
Contract Terms: 56%
Trust: 44%
Technical Capabilities: 59%
Trust: 41%
When deciding with which vendor(s)
you will do business, which is more
important?
Favorable
financial
arrangements
Trusting the
vendor
Financial: 58%
Trust: 42%

11. Comments from Librarians…
http://muse.jhu.edu
“The contract "trumps" trust in that it is written (at my institution)
with consequences should some parts of it not be fulfilled.”
“Trust is built on a number of factors: competency,
reliability, reputation; to me it's the outcome of a well run
business.”
“Trust is built over time. An initial relationship with a new vendor is
not really based on trust - you do some due diligence but it is partly
based on contract and partly leap of faith.”

12. Questions for Discussion?
http://muse.jhu.edu
1. What is happening to trust in a down economy between
publishers/vendors and libraries?
2. Related to shrinking budgets, does delivering high-quality content
to end-users matter as much anymore? Is “good enough” okay?
3. How do we establish and maintain trust given the web’s
many disguises?