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Hi, Last month Louise Cole said "I'd love to know why publishers are determined to make life as hard for us as possible. You'd think they didn't want us to access their journals." Here's more evidence to support that theory. We've just had an email from our agents, SwetsBlackwell, to say that our subscription to the London Review of Books includes online access. The email included both the URL to visit, and our subscriber number to activate access. Exemplary efficiency. But when I visited the activation form, I found that we had to enter the surname from the address label too. Uh oh. I tried every word in our address, but to no avail. Time to get back in touch with SwetsBlackwell I thought. But then I checked the terms and conditions, just to make sure that online access was intended for institutional subscribers too. First the good news: "Each subscription to the LRB entitles the subscriber - be they an individual or an institution ..." sounds good! "...the registration of one person to use the 'subscriber only' content on the web site. This person is the 'registered subscriber'" Oh dear. But it gets worse: "Use of the 'subscriber only' content on the Website is strictly for the personal use of the registered subscriber and is not to be used for any purpose by any other person." So if I register myself as the 'registered subscriber', I can't even print out an article for one of our members, even if, say, our print copy went missing or, heaven forbid, never turned up in the first place. Is it just me, or is that not very useful? Terry Bucknell Electronic Resources Manager Harold Cohen Library University of Liverpool PO Box 123 Liverpool L69 3DA Tel: +44 (0)151 794 5408 Fax: +44 (0)151 794 5417 Email: [log in to unmask]