There is a new accountant in the university's finance office looking after (i.e. scrutinising) central services accounts including the library's. At our recent meeting I mentioned that annual subscriptions for periodicals and databases had to be paid in advance and this seemed to have shocked him when he realised how much of the library's expenditure was prepayment.
We pay for TV licence, vehicle tax, train and airline tickets in advance, so this is not unique to library purchases but how do you explain to someone unfamiliar with the practice that periodicals subscriptions must be paid for the whole year in advance? Is there any document which explains how things work? We take prepayment for periodicals for granted although we may not like it and the suggestion to phase payments for expensive e-journals last year did not find overwhelming support.
I've found the following on a publisher's website:
Payment Terms: Full pre-payment in the correct currency is required for all orders.
I'm sure if I search carefully other publishers might have similar statements on their websites but I'm wondering if there is anything more general that I can quote and pass to our accountant.
Mieko
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Mieko Yamaguchi
Head of Collection Management
Bangor University Library
Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2DG
UK
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