Oh well, that onerous subject again ...
I cannot count how many times I had to intervene on behalf of the
members of our GASCO Nature Consortium, because of lost access (right
from January until June). In most cases, it turned out that the access
had not been activated. But almost always, the license ID that had to
be entered was exactly the same license ID that was in use before! So
I now gave admins the advise that they should first try to simply
reenter the license ID that is already associated to most of their subs.
But why has the customer to enter license IDs in the first place? The
only valid reason I can see for this is when the account is first
set up, because he must enter contact addresses, ip addresses and all
that anyway to get the license activated. But after that, the update
of the license IDs should be taken care of by the publisher.
What makes this especially annoying is that the Activation e-mails
that should be sent out automatically to the licensee in many cases
did not arrive. In some cases they went to the wrong persons, because
NPG's main institutional contact is not always identical to the local
account administrator. I have suggested to NPG that they should at
least make sure that all activation messages are automatically sent
out to the e-mail address associated with the local admin account but
they told us it was not currently possible. Therefore it is not enough
to update a local account administrator's e-mail in the admin account
but you must also remember to pass on that address change to NPG
staff. Why do we have a local admin account if we cannot update our
addresses there once and for all?
Besides this, NPG's use of license IDs for activation is a nightmare
in itself. You only have to make an error in entering the ID and
you will quite likely have the subscriptions of another site in your
account. And the poor admin at that site will wonder why his subs
disappeared for no apparent reason. I am not making this up but all
this has actually happened in our consortium several times.
With a deep sigh,
Bernd-Christoph Kaemper, GASCO Nature Consortium
Louise Cole wrote:
>
> Sandra
>
> I completely agree. What makes me really fume is when we don't get these letters until May/June for subscriptions which should have been switched on in January. Half the year having gone before we benefit from what we are entitled to.
>
> Taylor and Francis have been a major problem for us. I'd also mention MIT who at least send out activation letters but why, when they know we have subscribed for another year, can't they sort it out?
>
> Louise
>
> Louise Cole
> Electronic Resources Team Leader
> Health Sciences Library
> University of Leeds
> Leeds
> LS2 9JT
>
> tel. 0113 34 35502
> fax. 0113 34 34381
>
> email. [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 s morris
> Sent: 17 June 2005 11:10
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: activation of online access
>
> I know this has been raised before, but can someone remind me why we have to activate our online access?
>
> I've just received a letter from Multilingual Matters Ltd stating that their records show that we may not have activated our online access.
>
> Why can they (and other organisations) not activate automatically each new sub? They already have our IP addresses.
>
> Later in the letter, the dreaded 'simply' word appears followed by 'few minutes of your time' so you start off ever hopeful, then come to a dead stop by the words 'subscription number' and '...carrier sheet sent with the print journal'.
>
> Taylor and Francis/Metapress is another provider that I have activation difficulties with.
>
> Sandra.
>
> Sandra Morris
> Electronic Information Development Officer
> Subject Support & E-Library Team,
> Information Services,
> Hugh Owen Library,
> University of Wales,
> Aberystwyth,
> Ceredigion, SY23 3DZ
> ====================================
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Phone: 01970 621892
> FAX: (01970) 622404
>
> Tîm Cynorthwywyr Pwnc ac E-Lyfrgell,
> Gwasanaethau Gwybodaeth,
> Llyfrgell Hugh Owen,
> Prifysgol Cymru,
> Aberystwyth,
> Ceredigion, SY23 3DZ
> ====================================
> Ffon: 01970 621892
> ====================================
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