Dear All
Last week we indadvertently sent four duplicate requests to the BL, and
have discovered that under the new system, we *cannot* cancel requests.
We have just spoken to BL "customer services" about these requests and have
been told that the information we have received is correct, ie that it is
not possible to cancel requests.
Apparently when the email arrives at the BL it is read by software which
splits it up and sends it out to the different locations. There is no
mechanism for checking duplicate requests at all and no way of cancelling
requsts made in error when you submit requests by email. However, if you
use Artel, you have a generous margin of *15 minutes* to cancel after you
make the request, but nothing after that.
It doesn't matter whether you choose your own request numbers, let the BL
choose them for you, or use a billing or deposit account.
In our particular case the requests were for books, and if these go onto a
waiting list, they can be cancelled. However, if these duplicates had been
for photocopies, or books that weren't on a waiting list, we wouldn't have
been able to cancel them, no matter how quickly we had noticed our mistake
and we would have lost a significant amount of money.
The BL person said that she realised it was unacceptable and it had
been flagged as an issue but they haven't as yet decided this is a priority
for changing, and even if they do it will take 2-3 YEARS to change.
Has anyone else come across similar problems with the "new improved" BL
system of charging? It seems to me they are determined to make *us* pay for
its success!
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John Clarke
Librarian
The Friends of the Children of Great Ormond Street Library
Institute of Child Health
30 Guilford Street
London WC1N 1EH
Tel: 020 7242 9789 ext. 2424 or 2156
Fax: 020 7831 0488
email: [log in to unmask]
Homepage: http://www.ich.ucl.ac.uk/
Catalogue: http://www.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~admin/webcat.html
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