Accucoms, a Netherlands-based provider of sales and marketing services to scholarly and society publishers, has published a whitepaper titled 'Selling to Libraries in Central and Eastern Europe.' The Central and Eastern European (CEE) region is rapidly emerging as an important market for scientific and academic publications.
After fielding many questions about how to sell to this region, the company decided to conduct a survey and publish the results in a White Paper for the benefit of the academic publishing community. The research identified what type of resources they currently have available; what resources they want to include in the future; the preferred format for resources; preferred methods of communication from publishers; and the importance of different aspects of customer service.
One of the key findings that the report identified was that whilst libraries want to subscribe to more electronic resources, they often do not have the infrastructure or technical expertise to handle implementation of these resources. It also found that librarians appreciate the ability to communicate with someone in their own language, they would like more visits and participation in local conferences for greater understanding of the market and the most popular incentive is the availability of free trials.
The White Paper is available online at http://www.accucoms.com/about/reports.htm.
