----------(1)
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 09:41:46 -0400
From: Mary Kay Quirk <mquirk@USNEWS.COM>
Subject: Re: Centrobe / Neodata of Boulder, CO (Marilee Rouillard)

Here's another problem with the fulfillment houses.

We have had terrible problems with our multiple copy orders being combined
into one multi-year subscription. (ie. 5 Esquire subscriptions turned into
one subscription that expired in 2005).  This has happened to almost all of
our multi-copy subscriptions over the last year.  Our vendor RoweCom whom
we have been with just over a year, blames these problems on the
fulfillment houses. RoweCom says that their order request is clear as to
what we actually want, and that its the fulfillment house fault  The one
they specifically mentioned was NewSub.

>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 10:56:21 -0500
>From: Linda Fairbanks <lfairban@TRITON.CC.IL.US>
>Subject: Re: Centrobe / Neodata of Boulder,
>                   CO:  A Plea for Responses (Stephen Perisho)
>
>Hi Stephen
>Your message really strikes home. Last Friday I spent time writing a
>similar rant about EBSCOhost, who handles our periodical subscriptions. We
>have had a terrible time with publishers sending us two or even three
>subsriptions where we only (should!) have one and it has taken EBSCO way
>too long to stop it. We also get price increases passed on to us
>constantly. Admitedly, I'm new to managing serials, but I would have
>thought that having paid for a year's subscription, I'd get a year at that
>price. Do all subscription services simply agree to and then send on,
>publishers random price increases? I'm not sure which made me angrier, the
>invoice for a $6 price rise  or the one for a couple thousand. I wish I
>could tell you I was happy with my service, but I'm not. Does anybody out
>there LIKE their subscription service?
>Linda
>Linda C. Fairbanks
>Director of Technical Services
>Triton College Library, R-214B
>2000 Fifth Avenue
>River Grove, IL 60171
>Office: (708) 456-0300 x3424
>e-mail: <lfairban@triton.cc.il.us>
>http://www.triton.cc.il.us

Mary Kay Quirk
Serials & Electronic Collections Librarian
U.S. News & World Report
1050 Thomas Jefferson Street, NW
Washington, DC  20007
Phone: 202-955-2205
Fax:     202-955-2506
E-mail: mquirk@usnews.com

----------(2)
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 09:43:35 -0400
From: Barbara Eastland - Library <eastland@HAL.MUHLBERG.EDU>
Subject: Re: Centrobe / Neodata of Boulder,
                  CO:  A Plea for Responses (Linda Fairbanks)

Hi Linda-

To answer 2 of your questions, it appears that all subscription agencies
must pass on the random price increases of publishers, otherwise the
agency could not survive (I got one a couple of years ago for $.01..go
figure!).

I, for one, LOVE my subscription agent, Faxon, because they (or rather my
rep, Mary O'Connor) handles all the guff that Neodata can hand out!!  More
often than not, Mary succeeds in getting fair treatment from that
insensitive, unprofessional and often incompetent organization for us.

Best regards,
Barb

Barbara B. Eastland              VOICE: 484-664-3561
Serials Manager                    FAX: 484-664-3511
Trexler Library                         eastland@hal.muhlberg.edu
Muhlenberg College
2400 Chew St.
Allentown  PA  18104

----------(3)
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 11:57:19 -0500
From: "Gillespie, Gaele" <ggillespie@UKANS.EDU>
Subject: Re: Centrobe / Neodata of Boulder,
                  CO:  A Plea for Responses (Lin da Fairbanks)

In response to Linda Fairbank's posting about supplemental billings and
quality of vendor services:

If you don't want to deal with supplemental invoices, then consider
renegotiating your account/invoicing profile with your vendor(s) to bill you
on the firm-pricing model. Firm pricing means that your vendor will bill you
only when they get the actual, firm price of a subscription/standing order
title from the publisher. It is when vendors bill you *before* they have the
actual, firm prices that you will receive supplemental invoices for price
increases that occur between the time the vendor invoices you and the time
that the publisher actually sets the firm price for the title and invoices
the vendor.  In our experience, Swets Blackwell (both the NJ and Oxfordshire
service centers), Nijhoff, and Harrassowitz are the most amenable to and
consistent with firm pricing (it means less work for them, too, when you
think about the labor involved with supplemental invoicing); Ebsco and Faxon
are less inclined to either remember to abide by the firm-pricing model from
year to year (even after it's been requested as part of your account/invoice
profile), or are not set up to do it, or do not care to do it -- in other
words, it takes more negotiation, follow-up and monitoring with Ebsco and
Faxon than with Swets Blackwell, Nijhoff, and Harrassowitz.  Ebsco does have
a "service" (we don't use it, so I don't know what it's called -- but it was
discussed on SERIALST a few months ago and if you search the archives,
you'll find those postings) which involves a fee of some sort whereby you
will not get supplemental invoices even if you've prepaid early (before the
publisher has set their prices), but you will also not receive any credit
memos for the price decreases that also can, and will, occur.  However, it
just doesn't make sense to agree to pay an additional fee to a vendor to NOT
create supplemental invoices when the solution exists via the firm-pricing
option.

And take heart, Linda, because YES (speaking for myself and my staff), we
certainly like our subscription services. No vendor does everything
perfectly, and some could do certain things better, but our vendors also
provide a variety of important services. Maintaining optimal levels of
vendor-publisher-customer communication is an on-going challenge.  Also,
quality of service is a shared responsibility: to ensure that the
vendor-publisher-customer relationship is all it can be, we have a
responsibility to review and monitor our vendors' services and then request
changes and improvements where necessary and desirable.  -- Gaele

E. Gaele Gillespie / Serials Librarian / University of Kansas Libraries /
e-mail: ggillespie@ukans.edu / phone: 785-864-3051