Hi,
I know it's the same old story, but why do I need to tell it every year.
Isn't it time we made progress on this issue.
This year I converted several of my print/online subscriptions to online
only subscriptions, but I have yet to receive any official confirmation from
the publishers that these renewals went through OK. True, I can see if I've
paid the subscription, but we all know that it is not always enought to know
that you've paid. All of these renewals were formerly print/online
combinations.
With a print subscription one would notice that a print journal was not
being received and would chase it, but an online only subscription is very
different and I believe a different approach by the publisher is needed. In
one case where I moved to electronic only, we were given a new subscriber
number for that title on the publishers database, but the publisher
concerned thought we had cancelled our subscription to this title
altogether!! This particular publisher felt that they needed to improve the
communication between themselves and the agents, which I support.
In the absence of verification from the publishers I find myself once again
having to go and see if I can get into the full text in order to verify that
the renewal has gone smoothly, thereby adding to our usage statistics. Yet
with many publishers giving differing grace periods how does one know that
the subscription is not going to be a problem at the end of the grace
period. How does one know when to check?
Should publishers not think now about how they confirm electronic access for
electronic only subscriptions to their subscribers each year.
Cheers
Lesley
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Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant
Learning and Information Services,
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB UK
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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]
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