Neighborhood Periodicals (2 messages) Marcia Tuttle 26 Oct 1995 15:55 UTC
(1) Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 16:29:30 -0600 From: Leah Norris <norris@MACALSTR.EDU> Subject: Neighborhood Periodicals Our library does not use EBSCO, we use Faxon as our primary vendor. We also had trouble with receiving about a half-dozen "gift subscriptions" through Neighborhood Periodicals. I called the subscription offices of the magazines themselves (Snow Country, Skin Diver, etc...) to confirm that the subscriptions had been placed by Neighborhood. One was able to tell me that Neighborhood was located in Chicago, IL, - their number is listed, though I have since thrown it away. This office in Chicago will try to convince you to call another office in Cleveland (I believe), but this is not true. The person to talk to is Ms. Rivera in Chicago. She was adamant that nothing could be done about the subscriptions (which we regarded as annoying unsolicited mail) and was rather miffed that we were less than grateful. The Chicago Better Business Bureau advised us to write a letter to the IL Attorney General's office, as the unsolicited "gifts" could be considered harassing. I called Ms. Rivera and offered to NOT write this letter if she could find some way to stop the "gifts" from being showered upon us. Less than 1/2 hour after this conversation, I received a message that the gifts had been stopped, and we would no longer be on their lists. Haven't gotten any Neighborhood Periodicals ever since. --Leah Norris Periodicals Assistant Macalester College Library St. Paul, MN ---------- (2) Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 17:02:16 -0500 From: Di Neumeister <drneumei@LCAC1.LORAS.EDU> Subject: Re: Neighborhood Periodical List (Steve Thompson) I first heard of Neighborhood this summer when we started to recieve 8 subscriptions to popular magazines that just appeared out of the blue and had subscription end dates 1 1/2 - 3 in the future. I finally tracked them all down to Neighborhood, but it took a long time: called the publishers; called the only phone number the publishers had, which was just a distribution center; called the number the distribution center gave me, which was for Neighborhood. After 2 additional phone calls to Neighborhood, I was eventually able to get the subs. we really couldn't use (we kept 2 of the 8) stopped, but the people at Neighborhood were unable to locate our subscriptions AT ALL at first. The customer service rep. I talked to was always polite and was helpful in the end, but the whole process was time-consuming and VERY frustrating! While our budget is tight and we usually appreciate donations, we would much rather have donations of additional academic journals which we can't currently afford to provide. Failing that, there are certainly more appropriate popular journals for a midwestern college library than the journal for senior citizens or the surfing and diving journal which were included in the gift subscriptions. We could easily have provided a wish list if they'd only asked..... BTW, as far as I know, this place was NOT connected with Ebsco. We were never asked if we wanted to participate in this program and we received no plastic magazine covers as those people participating in the Ebsco program apparently do. Diane Neumeister e-mail: drneumei@lcac1.loras.edu Serials Asst. (NOTE: That's LCAC1) Wahlert Memorial Library Loras College, Dubuque, IA 52004-0178 On Tue, 24 Oct 1995, Marcia Tuttle wrote: > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 08:51:30 EDT > From: Steve E. Thompson <AP201002@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU> > Subject: Neighborhood Periodical List > > We recently began receiving unsolicited gift subscriptions to 8 popular > magazines (e.g. Road & Track, Snow Country, etc.). The subscriptions run > from 2-3 years in length. With some help from EBSCO, we have discovered that > the subscriptions are from an unknown donor through the Neighborhood > Periodical Club. Has anyone else had a similar experience? Can anyone shed > any light on the Neighborhood Periodical Club? Thanks. > > Steve Thompson > Head, Serials Dept. > Brown University >