Over the past three years, SPARC’s Negotiation Community of Practice has worked to meaningfully address information asymmetries between libraries and vendors, to support libraries in negotiating better deals and unbundling from big deal packages, and to better align collections spending with library values. The supportive community created by members of the group has helped libraries lay the groundwork for stronger library negotiating positions and for making better informed, values-based decisions about what to purchase and from which vendors.
At the heart of the community of practice are working groups that collaborate to produce resources addressing key areas related to negotiation, including data analysis, mitigating cancellation impact, reinvestment, and stakeholder engagement. Complementing the work of these groups, the community also hosts regular webcasts on emerging developments and topics of interest as well as an ongoing series of vendor-specific negotiation discussions.
SPARC is seeking a visiting program officer (VPO) to support the SPARC Negotiation Community of Practice and assist libraries in the development of a more equitable journal negotiations landscape. The VPO will play the lead role in organizing the work of the community of practice and assisting in the development of the overall strategic direction for the community’s work, in close collaboration with the SPARC team.
While candidates should have a familiarity with vendor negotiations, expert-level knowledge of negotiations is not a requirement. Applications for this position will be open until March 21st. Full details about this position and instructions for how to apply are available here. Please note SPARC currently has three VPO roles open and candidates are welcome to apply for more than one VPO role. Links to the role descriptions and the online applications for each are available on the SPARC website at https://sparcopen.org/who-we-are/careers. If there are any questions about the role, please contact Val Hollister at [email protected].