APOLOGIES to all for late response here. I actually put together a reply
within hours of John posting his question, and then eventually had to get
Lesley Crawshaw to help me work out why my posting to the list didn't
work! So thank you Lesley. And apologies to everyone else for the lateness
of this information.
John
I'd have to check into the particular circumstances of the University of
Kent, but here's some general information.
There are currently three subscription rates available: Bundle (print plus
online), Print only, Online only.
There has been no change of policy for Cambridge Journals. We have offered
these three rates for the last three years ever since the VAT authorities
told us that we could no longer offer 'online free with print'. They
insisted that VAT is levied on the online portion of the bundle
subscription therefore it could not be considered free.
I suspect U of Kent subscriptions were of the Bundle variety in 2003 and
have been renewed as Print only. I will have to check this. (NB have now
had time to check this, of course, and this is indeed the case.)
For 2004 Swets automatically renewed all customers' Bundle subscriptions
to Print only. We understand that they warned everyone that they were
going to do this but some of you may have missed this information. There
were also some postings on various listservs. I suspect what you are
seeing are the effects of this. Your online access would have been graced
by us until 31 March because Cambridge is one of the set of publishers
that allow a grace period for online access, and you would just begin to
see your access dropping off as further issues have been published since
31 March.
We have a 'continuing access' policy. Therefore you are still getting
access to the titles for which you purchased online access during 2003.
Ebsco did exactly the same thing for 2003 renewals! This seems to be a
policy of the major subscription agents - that when a choice becomes
available, they renew their customers to the cheapest option, unless they
hear otherwise. Except in our case print-only ISN'T the cheapest option;
online-only is (or the two are comparable)!
When Cambridge found out about this policy it asked for it to be changed,
and for customers to be clearly alerted to the consequences.
If you use Swets or Ebsco you should all be aware that this may have
happened to your subscriptions and check with them what you have actually
ordered. I'm sure they will be happy to help, and to arrange for you to
upgrade to Bundle or switch to Online only subscriptions if you desire it!
With best wishes
Lesley Boyle
_____________________________________
Lesley Boyle
Business Development Manager, Journals
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
+44 (0)1223 325535
Go to http://www.journals.cambridge.org for our journals content
Go to http://www.cambridge.org for all other Cambridge information
"J.W.T.Smith" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent by: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
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18/05/04 15:41
Please respond to
An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
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To
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Subject
Cambridge online journals?
We subscribe to a number of Cambridge journals in paper form and have had
'free' access to these titles in e-form. We recently noticed that while we
still appear to have e-access to these titles the very latest issue is
withheld and an additional fee requested. Has this always been the case
and we just missed it or has the access policy changed recently? If the
latter were you told in advance or was it announced anywhere?
Regards,
John Smith,
The Templeman Library,
University of Kent.
_____________________________________
Lesley Boyle
Business Development Manager, Journals
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
+44 (0)1223 325535
Go to http://www.journals.cambridge.org for our journals content
Go to http://www.cambridge.org for all other Cambridge information
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