Placing subscriptions direct with publishers (2 messages) Marcia Tuttle 09 Jan 2003 13:28 UTC
----------1 Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 11:26:17 -0500 From: "Marcia Kingsley" <marcia.kingsley@wmich.edu> Subject: subscription vendors/new model Content-Disposition: inline Placing subscription orders directly with publishers is a miserable alternative to dealing with a debacle such as Faxon. (Fortunately we at WMU switched from them to Ebsco a couple of years ago.) In two libraries where I've worked, we have increased efficiency tremendously over the years by consolidation almost all journals with key vendors. If we had not done this for our 7,000 or so print subscriptions years ago, there is no way we would have had the manpower to spare for dealing with all our electronic databases and journals. Dealing directly is extremely labor intensive. (In the early nineties I even published a couple of articles - in The Acquisitions Libn. and the Encyclopedia of Library and Info. Science - about the difficulties of just coping with the idiosyncratic invoices and billing processes of individual publishers.) We librarians should look at some alternative models of working with our periodical vendors BEFORE we all go sending out our huge payments to them this fall. The old model, built on trust, hasn't held up in the case of Faxon. While some of our colleagues are busy struggling with the Faxon mess, some of the rest of us can look at ways to get better legal guarantees from our periodical vendors that they are handling our money properly. I'm sure our legitimate vendors would readily cooperate. We also need written assurances from our vendors that when their online information says the publisher has been paid, that information is true. I hope to get some advice from our campus Purchasing and legal officers and from Ebsco on some win-win enhancements to our payment and contractual model. PLEASE LET'S SHARE IDEAS WE ALL COME UP WITH. And I hope this a topic that some of our ALA ALCTS Committees will be addressing in Philadelphia in a couple of weeks. - Marcie Marcie Kingsley Head, Library Acquisitions and Serials Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, MI 49008 kingsley@wmich.edu 269 387-5147 (Fax: -5193) ----------2 From: "Rollo Turner" <rollo.turner@onet.co.uk> Subject: Re: Re: Faxon/Rowecom/divine Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 17:56:43 -0000 Whilst I can understand and sympathise with Amanda Myers given the current situation, I would be wary of going it alone. Agents have in general helped lower libraries costs (otherwise libraries would not use them). Doing it all yourself may well raise your overall costs. Also it is important to realise that there are other agents out there who are efficient, financially secure and should be able to do a good job for you. Because one agent has collapsed does not mean the whole industry is on the brink of catastrophe, thank goodness! A list of agents can be found on the ASA website (www.subscription-agents.org) and we are always happy to put libraries in contact with member companies and help with advice relating to subscription agents and intermediaries where possible and appropriate. Rollo Turner Secretary General Association of Subscription Agents and Intermediaries 10 Lime Avenue High Wycombe Bucks HP11 1DP UK Tel +44 (0)1494 534778 www.subscription-agents.org Email rollo.turner@onet.co.uk ----- Original Message ----- From: "digest Amanda Myers" <AmandaMyers@FERRIS.EDU> To: <SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU> Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 8:21 PM Subject: Re: Faxon/Rowecom/divine > Hello, > > With the Divine confusion, we are considering not working with a jobber > but instead, ordering titles directly from the publisher. I'm at a > state-assisted university serving 9,000 FTE students and 500 faculty. We > were obtaining approximately 600 journal titles from Divine. I'm > interested in learning of any library out there with demographics > comparable to ours that is getting their journals directly from the > publisher, i.e., without using a subscription jobber; is anyone doing or > considering doing this? > > Please feel free to email me directly. > > Amanda Myers > Serials Librarian > 1010 Campus Drive, FLITE 208 > Ferris State University, Big Rapids, Michigan 49307-2279 > email: myersa@ferris.edu > phone: (231) 591-3012 fax: (231) 591-3724