Hi,
We have subscriptions to two of AMA's journals, one a site license for JAMA
and the other a print/online subscription to Archives of General Psychiatry.
We have had problems with both of these subscriptions in 2006, one of which
has now been resolved and the other which we our agent is now trying to get
resolved.
1. JAMA - on the 17/01/06 we were informed by the AMA that the invoice sent
to our agent on the 19/10/05 hadn't been paid, and that as we were nearing
the end of our gracing period we would lose access unless they received
payment asap. It turned out that our agent had indeed made the payment on
the 07/12/05 for 2006. We informed AMA of this and were later informed that
they had had a temporary person helping out for a while and that the payment
had not been entered as paid in their database. We did receive an apology
from AMA for this and we were assured that the system the AMA uses would
never cut us off if we had paid or if they knew we had the intention of
paying. That statement unfortunately doesn't seem to have applied to the
problem we've had with the Archives of General Psychiatry - see below.
2. Archives of General Psychiatry - on the 24/03/06 I received an alert from
Highwire saying that our access to the AGP would expire on the 31/03/06. We
immediately contacted our agent who then checked their system and informed
us that the cheque that they had sent to the publisher on the 02/12/05
hadn't been cashed. In the meantime they would stop the cheque and issue a
new payment. At the same time I tried to get our access to AGP extended to
avoid inconvenience to our users whilst the problem with payment was
resolved. I contacted the person at AMA who had dealt with the problem with
JAMA, but was told they only dealt with site licenses and that our agent
needed to contact the Unified Service Centre. I tried to contact the
publisher at this number, but unfortunately ending up speaking to one of
those call centre "automatons" who just kept saying we hadn't paid our
account and to contact our agent and then basically bye bye! On the 31/03/06
I received an alert from Highwire saying our account had now expired. We've
informed our agent of this and they are now trying to resolve this with the
publisher.
These incidents illustrate how easily access can be lost even though payment
had been made by our agent for both journals for the 2006 subscription year.
They also illustrate some differences in the AMA's customer support for
those who have site licenses and those who have print/online subscriptions.
With the site license we received direct contact from AMA giving us a chance
to look into the problem and get it resolved. That personal contact enabled
us to resolve the situation without fear of our users losing access. With
the print/online subscription we had to rely on Highwire for notifying us of
the impending problems with AGP and it was difficult to have any personal
contact with the AMA and get some extended grace whilst the problem was
resolved. In both cases we've paid for these subscriptions. In both cases
our agent had made the necessary payments. In both cases precious time and
effort has had to be expended by ourselves and our agent trying to get this
sorted, and this is just for two journals.
Surely there should be some process in place whereby this publisher had
double-checked with our agent, before withdrawing access? We are the
innocent party here, but yet our users are the ones who will suffer. If this
had happened all of this could have been avoided. Also, do agents routinely
check for non-cashed payments they've made to publishers? If these
additional quality checks had been in operation this might have avoided both
of these situations.
Cheers
Lesley
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Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant
Learning and Information Services
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB
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email: [log in to unmask]
phone: 01707 284662 fax: 01707 284666
list owner: [log in to unmask]
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