Photo Resource WUR employees are no longer permitted to buy books they need for their work from Amazon, Bol or local bookstore Kniphorst. Starting next year, the Erasmus bookstore in Amsterdam will be the new mandatory supplier. The change is the result of European procurement laws.
This exclusive deal caused some upheaval among WUR employees. What is this good for? Alex de Kruijff, the library’s employee responsible for the tendering, understands the questions. ‘A check on our financial statements revealed that WUR spends more on books than the threshold amount for European tendering. Thus, a single supplier must be sought for all of WUR.’
350,000 euros
WUR spends 350,000 euros on books each year. An investigation shows that the library is responsible for one-third of this sum, while employees order books for the remaining amount. De Kruijff: ‘Some 400 to 500 orders are processed each year, ranging from a single book to as much as a hundred books per order.’
A simple calculation shows that, at an average price of 50 euros per book, employees buy over 4000 books a year. ‘The good news is that scientists read a lot’, says librarian Hubert Krekels. The average waiting time for a book order is two weeks. De Kruijff: ‘Two weeks is the average delivery time. Many scientific books are imported from the United States or England and are shipped over land or by air.’
We must be honest; it is never the same as Amazon or Bol with next-day delivery
Hubert Krekels, librarian WUR Library
‘We must be honest; it is never the same as Amazon or Bol with next-day delivery’, says Krekels. ‘However, Amazon and Bol don’t carry many scientific books. Finding specific books and their supplier is a lot of work. It is a specialised job.’ The library already procures books via the Erasmus Bookstore.
Discount
The mandatory supplier also benefits WUR as the tendering resulted in a discount. ‘How much of a discount is confidential’, De Kruijff states. The discount does not apply to all purchases. ‘It depends on the book’s country of origin. In the Netherlands, the price of books is fixed; in other countries, it isn’t.’
