I do agree with Lesley, we share exactly the same problems this year. We had
many problems with some core journals in the pharmaceutical sciences, i.e.
Circulation.
Some of the bigger publishers give you just in time an information, when
access features or licence fees will change, so that you have the chance to
react (i.e. Nature, Lancet - thank you for this kind of support!!!). On the
other site it makes you really angry, when online access is canceled and you
weren't been informed in time.
To get access to most of the online journals, you have to register on the
sites/homepages, there, you give e-mail-addresses an other informations
about the journal administrator of the library/subscriber. So I think it
should not be a problem for the publishers, to keep the customer informed
about any changes! You can automise that, if you want. Additional, please
keep the subscriber informed about the information you need, not to hold on
subscriptions (i.e. proofs of payment are needed).
Publisher should be interested in optimizing their customer support, because
we are paying lots of money for "print-and-onlines" and that will also help
both sites to get this really helpful kind of new media more accepted.
Regards,
Elgin Helen Jakisch
Aventis Pharma Deutschland GmbH
Scientific Information & Library, H823
D-65926 Frankfurt am Main
Tel.: 069 / 305-13691
Fax : 069 / 305-81736
Mailto: [log in to unmask]
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Lesley Crawshaw [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Gesendet am: Dienstag, 13. März 2001 17:39
An: [log in to unmask]
Betreff: Lapsed/NonRenewed Subscriptions and Loss of Access to Ejournals
Hi,
We have had several cases this year and last where problems in the annual
renewal of the print subscription has led to the loss of access to the
electronic journal. In some cases we have lost access to the whole online
content e.g. Highwire or have lost access to the current year only e.g.
Catchword. However, the first we usually have known about it is when our
users report the loss of access to the journal concerned to us. Of course we
do sometimes have it the other way around i.e. we have cancelled the print,
but electronic access remains! Then there are electronic journal deals e.g.
NESLI deals where sometimes current print subscriptions must be maintained
as part of the deal - therefore problems with the non-renewal of print
subscriptions might undermine the terms of the contract.
Since publishers are now employing different cut off dates beyond which
access to the journal is terminated if the subscription is not renewed it is
getting harder and harder to identify where there could be problems with
loss of access to the full text. When should one begin the check - February,
March, April?
There must be a better way than either relying on users informing us about
loss of access or the even more dreaded option of trawling through journal
by journal to see if full text access is still available.
Loss of access can be caused by various problems - failing to renew,
supplier failing to invoice, suppliers failing to pay publishers, publishers
being paid, but not having cashed the cheque etc. etc. I have come across
all of these problems in my dealings with ejournals that are tied into print
subscriptions.
Yet surely loss of access due to any of the above must be of concern to the
publishers and agents, since they are not cancellations, but errors, which
potentially leads to loss of income and subscriptions.
Is there not some facility whereby we could be alerted when subscriptions
are not renewed, that haven't been cancelled, before our access is
terminated. At least this would give us some chance to get the situation
remedied and avoid inconvenience to our users.
Are others out there also suffering from this problem.
Cheers
Lesley
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant, LIS,
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB UK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
phone: 01707 284662 fax: 01707 284666
web: http://www.herts.ac.uk/lis/subjects/natsci/ejournals/
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