Hi,
Subscription agents are absolutely essential to our work. Whilst it is true
that in some cases we have ordered journals directly through the publisher
this is not the case for the majority of our subscriptions. As you say it
would be a nightmare scenario if we had to deal with the large number of
publishers whose journals we subscribe to. We are certainly under pressure
to find the staff time to deal adequately with our existing problems.
However I feel that agents have only themselves to blame for the current
situation. When we signed up for a license to Nature Publishing Group's
publications the speed with which we got our access set up was phenomenal -
I think it took a couple of hours from us faxing the license to them. That
speed of response is almost unknown from agents and maybe a contributing
factor for libraries to consider going direct to certain publishers. However
having said that we only do this for certain selected publishers and we are
keen not to see this increase any further than it is at the moment.
Our recent experience of ordering new electronic only titles or even
print/online titles through agents suggests that we have to wait a long time
from submitting the order to actually getting our electronic access set up
(the only exceptions have been some of our NESLI deals), this seems to
because when agents are involved monies must change hands between agent and
publisher before any access is considered. This is not always the case when
dealing direct with publishers whereby sometimes the order and signed
license is enought to get your access turned on. I believe that Christine
Fyfe at a recent UKSG seminar said that it had taken over 4 months to
finally get electronic access up and running. We also had to constantly
chase agents and publishers to find out why we still didn't have electronic
access to our subscriptions a month or so after ordering them. This isn't
good enough. We've also experienced several problems whereby we asked for
some subscriptions to be converted to eonly, but have since found were not
converted to eonly. Many of us would wish that agents would updated the
renewal process, which is almost still as it was in the print only days, to
more effectively tell us the options for the next subscription year +
clarify exactly what subscription type we have at the moment. Last year I
found that I had better information about options for 2002 subscriptions
than our agents did, although this did require a large amount of effort to
find this information.
I think if agents improve their performance in the processing of eonly
orders (or any kind of subscription with an electronic component) and get
our access set up quickly and efficiently then we will be happy to use them
rather than going direct to publishers which has all the associated problems
described in the previous emails.
Cheers
Lesley
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant
Learning and Information Services,
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/ejournal/
list owner: [log in to unmask]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Jennings Val (RGZ)
Sent: 10 July 2002 10:35
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: E-Journal admin costs
Come to that, what do subscription agents feel about being by-passed?!!
Suppose they became non-viable and we all had to deal with individual
publishers: doesn't bear thinking of. Virtual one man bands in health and
business sectors would find it nigh impossible to cope.
Val Jennings email:
[log in to unmask]
Library Service Manager TN: 020 8302 2504
Queen Mary's Sidcup NHS Trust Fax: 020 8308 9384
Frognal Avenue
Sidcup
Kent
DA14 6LT
-----Original Message-----
From: Shirley Sullivan [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 06:26
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: E-Journal admin costs
Dear List Members
I have not done a study of the admin costs maintaining ejournals, but know
that they must be high in our institution as they are taking up
increasingly large chunks of time. I do know that in the past couple of
years, since we have involved our agents, the time each title is taking is
less than it used to be (There are just more e titles now)
What I find particularly tiresome is the increasing tendency of the large
publishers to deal direct with libraries rather than use agents, This
increases the admin time spent, especially round renewal time, as we have
to ensure we receive a renewal invoice and deal with the publisher
separately. This is expensive in time and especially for our accounts dept,
\which needs to raise cheques for a number of publishers rather than write
one large cheque to an agent.
We have already had times when we have lost access to titles because the
publisher did not send a renewal invoice.
I have expressed my dissatisfaction to the publishers concerned but have
got nowhere. Is this customer service????? Why can't libraries co\hoose
whether to go direct or use an agent?Why should we be forced to go direct
if it does not suit us?
What do others think about this policy?
regards
Shirley Sullivan
At 11:00 AM 7/8/02 +0100, Rollo Turner wrote:
>Counting the cost of e-journal admin
>Has anyone out there stopped to measure the costs of administering
>e-journals? By this I mean the cost of subscription management and access
>provision. It seems to me that as the process of acquiring journals changes
>a great deal of simplicity is being lost with consequent and often quite
>substantial impacts on cost.
>
>As a result the ASA is interested in how we can ease this process, and
would
>welcome feedback on the following (and will be happy to share any results
>with the list):
>
>1. Have your costs for e-Journal admin risen over the last year & roughly
by
>how much?
>2. Do you see this increasing/decreasing over the next year?
>3. In which areas does your agent help most/least currently?
>4. If there were additional resources available from your agent where these
>would be best targeted?
>
>The background on this is that libraries now buy their electronic journals
>in a number of different ways - from the normal subscription process
through
>an agent to consortium deals no two of which ever seem to be similar let
>alone the same! In some cases however the journals publishers request that
>the journals must be ordered directly - even when the library may have
>preferred to use an agent. Others are acquired through consortia but may be
>paid for by the individual members through an agent, directly or through
the
>consortium. The so-called Big Deal with deep discount prices has also
>greatly increased the administrative complexity for everyone concerned,
they
>tie in funds for lengthy periods of time and may, if budgets are suddenly
>reduced, force libraries to cancel titles from smaller and high quality
>society publishers to keep some of these Big Deals going.
>
>These different means of acquiring content mean that each individual
library
>has had to assume more control over the management and reporting on the
>electronic journals taken. This is a role that is generally performed by
>subscription agents who have the necessary infrastructure available to
>provide value-added services such as special billing arrangements,
>interfacing to library ILS services and management reporting. Instead if
>each library is now doing more not less subscription administration the
>overall costs are likely to rise in terms of staff time and resources
>especially if libraries have to set up their own systems.
>
>Agents costs will also rise if more and more electronic titles are handled
>direct at the insistence of the publishers (generally the larger
publishers)
>leaving agents to handle the specialist, more varied and widely scattered
>smaller publishers. According to the UK Competition Commission, the big six
>publishers account for about 66% of all expenditure on STM journals for UK
>libraries. If their titles are removed from the agency list, the average
>cost per subscription will increase very significantly and, obviously,
>additional costs will eventually be reflected in their bills to libraries.
>
>
>With this trend and pricing models requiring a variety of different means
of
>handling electronic journals, the complexity and cost of handling
>subscriptions may well be increasing much faster than we currently know.
>Agents of course were put on this earth to help reduce the libraries costs
>and administration enabling them to reduce the amount of unproductive
>administration performed by skilled individuals. It seems this sensible
>approach has gone into reverse!
>
>Isn't it time we thought about simplifying the system, so that once again
it
>can be handled by properly qualified intermediaries to the benefit of all?
>This may require agents having to learn new and sometimes costly skills,
>publishers agreeing to work with them on electronic journals as they do
with
>paper, and agents and consortia agreeing to cooperate more closely in the
>future.
>
>If the customers want this to happen, the suppliers will eventually provide
>it. And it would be good for publishers since it would make it simpler for
>them to sell their journals individually or in packages to their clients in
>a well managed supply chain, thus reducing their administration costs also
>(publishers subscription management costs may also have increased by
between
>5 and 15% according to Sally Morris). In short, such a move would be worth
>it financially to everyone.
>
>Rollo Turner
>Secretary General
>Association of Subscription Agents and Intermediaries
>
>PS apologies for cross posting
Shirley Sullivan
Electronic Information Coordinator
Information Division
University of Melbourne
Victoria
Australia 3010
email [log in to unmask]
phone + 61 3 8344 5363
fax + 61 3 8344 5221
Mailing address:
first floor, Baillieu Library
University of Melbourne
Victoria
Australia 3010
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