While I support the notion of better customer relations implied by a grace
period, merely pressing for a period of arbitrary length rather avoids the
real issue.
It would appear from our own experience and that of others shown on the list
that the main problem is poor internal process control in many, but not all,
publishers. In the end, this boils down to poor invoice handling and
linkage to their business. As such, a grace period will serve no useful
purpose if it just delays the inevitable cut-off.
While I recognise that the volume of transactions is much higher for 1st
January renewals, this is no excuse.
- it happens for other contract start dates
- this is the business model the publishers have chosen to operate
Cutting off access in these circumstances amounts to breach of contract.
I would also remind you all that subscription prepayment, while arguably
operating as a benefit to all for print, cannot be justified for electronic
access and is out-of-line with virtually all other industries, where payment
in thirty days after an invoice becomes due is the norm. (Of course, even
thirty day invoice payment terms means an eleven month prepayment, as your
management accountant will remind you!) The situation will change
eventually but this will take much longer if most - especially in HE -
continue to accept the spurious arguments presented for prepayment.
Best practise invoice handling and automatic linkage to the internal
business process that controls product supply (i.e. providing agreed access)
is an absolute necessity for publishers.
My suggestions, to be applied to repeat offenders especially is:
1. If it is discovered that access is improperly denied, write to the
publisher informing them of their breach of contract. Give them formal
notice that access must be restored within a given period, if that has not
already happened.
2. Invoice the publisher for the period of loss of access.
3. Insist contractually on proper notification before any intention to deny
access, with an appropriate period of notice. This becomes a contractual
'grace period'.
4. Work with the ASA, JISC and others to develop and apply standard contract
terms that covers areas such as this.
Meanwhile, of course, you should be trying to maintain good relations with
the publisher and encouraging them to get their house in order. However,
this should not stop you asserting your rights if that is the appropriate
course of action to take.
One caveat on this is that you need to determine exactly what your
contractual situation is with the publisher, especially if you use a
subscription agent. You may need to instruct your subscription agent to
make your formal complaint on your behalf.
Regards,
Dr Geoff Kerrison PhD, BSc(Eng)(Met), MCLIP
Manager - Information Strategy
QinetiQ
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QinetiQ - The Global Defence and Security Experts
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lesley Crawshaw
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 12:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Gracing Periods - Why Aren't More Publishers Adopting These?
Hi,
It's the same old story again!
It's only 10 days into 2007 and already we are finding that we have already
suffered several losses of access to our electronic journals. We only know
about some of these due to problems being reported by our users or because
we received automated email alerts from those few services that provide
them. How many more losses of access have we suffered that we have yet to
uncover? It is totally unacceptable for publishers to remove our access to
our subscriptions without first trying to see if there is an underlying
problem that has caused them to believe that a subscription has not been
renewed for 2007.
Yet all of these problems could have been avoided if the publishers in
question had implemented a gracing period. This would give the parties
concerned some time to resolve the problems. Whilst many publishers do
implement gracing periods many don't implement them at all. Another problem
is that different publishers are implementing different gracing periods,
further complicating the situation. Some publishers only implement gracing
on the print journal, which isn't much help if one has an e-only
subscription.
Yesterday we found that we had lost access to the Journal of Wound Care - an
Emap publication. We contacted the publisher and found that although they
had received payment, they hadn't updated our account. The excuse given was
that this didn't always automatically happen when we used an agent. This is
sloppy. We had the same problem last year and the excuse given was the same.
We have also lost access to the American Journal of Psychiatry, several MIT
Press journals. Several other journals that we had lost access to have now
had access restored and these include Radiology and Endocrinology. In fact
we lost access to a number of journals towards the end of last year and in
these cases the problem appears to have been related to the fact that the
publishers concerned had entered the subscription period from the date they
received payment from our agents rather than the subscription period that
that payment was for (but that's another story).
Can I please urge that all publishers/intermediaries implement a decent
gracing period as a matter of urgency. It is really unfair that we are
losing access when publishers are still processing payments from agents.
As with many other institutions this is a very busy time of the year for our
electronic journals. Penalising our users who are increasingly confused and
bemused about why they can't access some of the journals is really not on!
The purpose of gracing is to give agents/librarians/publishers some time to
resolve errors that may have happened in the renewal process, which is an
increasingly complicated process as publishers change their subscription
policies/options. We all need to live in the real world where mistakes do
happen.
Cheers
Lesley
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant, Learning and Information
Services University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: [log in to unmask]
phone: 01707 284662 fax: 01707 284666
list owner: [log in to unmask]
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