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Hi, It's only my first day back at work and already we've found that we've lost electronic access to a number of our subscriptions. At present we don't know the scale of the problem. Whilst many publishers/learned societies have adopted gracing periods to avoid customers losing access whilst renewals are processed by publishers etc., many publishers/learned societies still don't appear to have got the message about the need for gracing, especially in the eonly world where loss of access can mean losing access to all available online material (depending on the subscription model of the journal). What makes it even more frustrating is that in the two cases I've just been looking at - not only did our access get cut off on the 31st December 2004, but the cheques from our agents to these publishers for our subscriptions have already been cashed. So in these two cases payment has been made, but we have still lost access. There is no justice in this. For information here are the two journals concerned. 1. Chest - published by the American College of Chest Physicians 2. Mycologia - published by the Mycological Society of America Both of these publishers/societies could have avoided these problems (or at least give time for these problems to get sorted out) by having a grace period. How do we get the message across to those publishers/societies who haven't adopted gracing periods that this is something that is essential today? Cheers Lesley ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lesley Crawshaw, Faculty Information Consultant, Learning and Information Services, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB UK ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ e-mail: [log in to unmask] phone: 01707 284662 fax: 01707 284666 web: http://www.herts.ac.uk/lis/subjects/natsci/ejournal/ list owner: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~