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More on Vendor Topic Jeanette Skwor 14 Nov 1994 16:57 UTC

I've gotten a couple replies asking me, in effect, what I needed/wanted to
know and am thinking rather than send off questions person-to-person I'd
post them here and hopefully, receive more input.

Basically I want to know everything you think is pertinent about changing
vendors and about the vendors FAXON and EBSCO in particular.  I'm fairly
new (well, actually very wet-behind-the-ears) (I got my BA in Humanistic
Studies in December; began here as Serials Supervisor in January) in this
business and am not even sure I know all the right questions, but here goes:

If you deal/dealt with EBSCO, please specify which office--it seems as
though there's quite a difference between them.  And does anyone know which
office handles Northern Wisconsin?

On both vendors:  What have been your experiences with them?  (Pros and
cons)  When you call, do you have a problem getting connected to a
person who can answer your question?  What is your experience with orders
and cancellations?  Do you have/are you on "special editions" lists
(standing orders for titles you receive less often than annually) and how
well-taken care of are those for you?  How long ago did you work with the
vendor under discussion?  Specifics, please, and if any of you call your
vendor, like I do--with dumb questions I don't know who else to ask--I
REALLY would like to hear your experiences.  What about errors or possible
errors on your part; does the vendor have checks in place that would catch
them?

And what about costs?  Do you think one is more cost-effective than the
other?  Can you provide input on cost-effectiveness overall vs. cost per
se?  Are service charges considerably lower with one than the other?

If you've changed vendors, why?  And what about the workload involved in
changing over?  What am I looking at?  We're on the NOTIS (LSER) system
here; I do realize if we switched I'd need to change all the OPRs, but are
there other things I should know?

And that's the final question in a nutshell.  ARE there other things I
should know?

Thank you all in advance; you've been a help already.

Jeanette Skwor
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
(414)465-2670
skworj@uwgb.edu