Lesley,
We've experience the same issues, but have not decided that LEA electronic
only is something we need to do.
so the email for us was actually pretty meaningless. Even if we had the PID
number from the mailing label it wouldn't have gotten us any access-unless
I'm misunderstanding something. We couldn't tell if they would restore the
retrospective access from looking at their website, as they seemed to want
to charge again for restrospective volumes online.
And the LEA site, as of Friday still said to register with Ingenta!
I think the problem is that we all are in the middle of the academic year,
and so these things, which seem to be more frequent this year than in the
past, make us frantic trying to restore access that publishers have shut
down because they haven't synchronized their systems with vendor payments (I
had a whole group of journals from one publisher disappear the last week of
December because of that problem!)
and they are looking at the "new year" It isn't the new year for academic
libraries, its the middle of the year, with faculty checking on the status
of articles they want to refer students to, public service librarians
putting finishing touches on the instructional sessions they are brushing up
for January or February, and as they do the find LOTS of things that don't
work-usually because the vendors records are messed up or as in the case of
LEA they decided to change at the point when we are all depending on access
for the next term.
In the "old" system publishers graced. In the new one specifically because
they are making changes often over the holidays, when few are around, and
then we return to frantic efforts to establish, re-establish or just
discover what went wrong!
Pardon the rant, but I've been running in place since the week before
holiday in December, and its getting exhausting.
Thanks for the post on LEA.
Chuck Hamaker
-----Original Message-----
From: Lesley Crawshaw
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 1/11/04 12:34 PM
Subject: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. - Access No Longer Available via
Ingenta, but Through LEA Online - Why Were No Transition Arrangements Put in
Place?
Hi,
On the 8th of January 2004 I received an email from ingenta saying
Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates journals will no longer be available via ingenta, but
via
the publisher's new site at: http://www.leaonline.com. The email told us
to
go to the new LEA Online site and enter our unique activation code*
(included in your LEA letter**). We were also told that if we had
received
multiple activation codes/letters from LEA, to complete the process
outlined
in tne email to activate each one separately. **If we had not received a
letter from LEA, we were told to use the LEA account number located on
the
mailing label of your print subscription. The latter wouldn't have been
any
help to us as we went online only from 2003! The letters finally made
their
way to the appropriate person and she set up our access. However, we
found
that we didn't have full access to all the content we were entitled to.
After contacting LEA we were able to get this sorted.
We've finally sorted everything out at our end, but we find that we now
have
two accounts for LEA Online, partly because some of our subscriptions
had
the 2002 issues under a different account number. We don't know why.
We've
asked if these two accounts can be merged, but we've been told this may
not
be feasible at present. One of the consequences of us now having two
account
numbers is that we will have to look at two lots of usage data,
subscription
data etc...
Now, don't get me wrong. I do realise that when new services come
online,
there are bound to be some "teething" problems. New services are a
learning
experience for all those involved. However, this requires that more
advance
warning is needed, so that our users are not inconvenienced by loss of
online access, and so that those responsible for administering ejournal
subscriptions at institutions have time to do the necessary work to make
the
changes.
What really surprised me was that although the old content still remains
(or
appears to remain) on ingenta select, all our access - access that we've
had
ever since 2000 has been terminated. I did contact ingenta and was told
that
there shouldn't be any Lawrence Erlbaum Associates content on
Ingenta/Ingenta Select. That's not what it looks like to a user - it
looks
like there is content, but we no longer have any access. I've checked
each
of our 8 LEA subscriptions and they all appear to still be on ingenta
select. Maybe the servers haven't yet all been updated and the LEA
journals
removed?
Surely some transition arrangement should have been put in place,
similar to
the gracing periods that we ask for in relation to electronic journal
subscriptions. We should have been able to continue to access pre 2004
content for this publisher via ingenta select for a short period of
time.
This would have allowed librarians time to get familiar with the new
service
and get any problems ironed out before all access was moved to the new
LEA
Online service, and our catalogues etc. updated with this new
information.
The other thing that publishers need to recognise is that librarians are
dealing with a large number of different publishers, not just one. We
are
often working through a large list of other unresolved queries, and
can't
always put everything else on hold for a change such as this. In the
last
week we've had to make a whole pile of changes for our electronic
journals
and we've only been back to work for a week - and what a week it was!!
I hope this all makes sense!
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]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|