Hello,
Absolutely ! I cancelled a suite of journals with a publisher because
they could not distinguish between us and our commercial arm. They
actually cut off our access in order to bring on the commercial arm as a
new customer, so it was quite pleasing to say "I shall take our journals
budget somewhere else then". No consideration of our needs, no working
together to solve the problem and quite frankly, they were so backwards
in considering new methods of access that I was concerned about staying
with them anyway.
The second situation was quite bad at the time - we could have
electronic access ONLY if we bought the print version too, ONLY via user
name and password and ONLY at the site where the print version was
delivered. As we were really committed to a) e-journals and b) access to
ALL our scientists, we could not accept these terms. Luckily, a year or
two later, the e-version is available through a larger, more experienced
provider, and we've started taking it again.
Oddly enough, telling our users that we don't get a journal because the
publisher won't make it available to us the way we need it, has really
clicked with the users. They don't push the point, and accept it far
more readily than our usual "the budget won't stretch that far".
Finally, I did raise the issue of extremely low usage statistics for
something I considered a well-used journal. I was almost begging the
publisher to tell me something was wrong with the stats, but they
didn't. I then threatened to cancel the title unless they could tell me
why the stats had dropped so much in a few months. They maintained the
usage stats were correct. So - we cancelled the title.
Sorry to go on, but it's something I feel quite strongly about !
Ann
Ann Brew
Library & Information Services Manager
Library
Cancer Research UK
44 Lincoln's Inn Fields
London
WC2A 3PX
Tel : 020 - 7269 2868
Fax : 020 - 7269 3084
-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by UKSG - Connecting the Information
Community [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Taylor,
Sarah
Sent: 09 February 2010 15:35
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [LIS-E-RESOURCES] Difficult e-journal access leading to
cancellation?
Hi all,
I've been trying to register a number of journals for online access. One
of these services has a tortuous procedure for remote access; the other
is proving a nightmare to set up. I dread to think what the user
experience of these particular journals will be like (I haven't been
able to get that far yet...)!
So I've started to wonder if any of you consider difficult online access
to be an important factor in the renewal of an electronic journal. In
the case of some of our journals, our usage is very low, and I can't
tell if this is due to 'just' poor usage, or difficult access
procedures. I know in some cases, cancellation wouldn't be an issue, but
I'm just curious to know if anyone does take awkward access into account
at any stage of the process.
Thanks in advance.
Best wishes,
Sarah
Sarah Taylor
Electronic Resources Librarian
Library
University of Bolton
Deane Road
Bolton
BL3 5AB
01204 903099
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