It is the policy of most of the publishers hosted on CatchWord to
have a gracing period during the renewals season, so that access
continues through the start of the year even if the renewal
notice or payment has not been received by Dec 31st. We are very
conscious of the potential problems with renewal of electronic
access, and always advise publishers to adopt this gracing period
to avoid accidental lapses or cancellations. Each publisher has
its own policy, and there are some instances where a publisher
will stop access (at least temporarily) when payment is not
received. It is the intention that users should be informed in
these circumstances, and we apologise if this has not happened.
We do not currently send email alerts about subscription status,
but a list of each registered institution's journal access, with
start and end dates, can be viewed at
www.catchword.com/subscriptions.htm . You can also sign up to
CatchWord Announce (www.catchword.com/announce.htm ) to be
informed of new journals and changes to existing journals or
policies. We soon hope to extend and adapt CatchWord Announce to
include similar news about ingenta.
As always we are open to suggestions on how we can improve any of
these processes.
Best wishes,
Kirsty Meddings
Library Relations Manager
CatchWord, an ingenta company
Tel: +44 (0)1235 555877
www.catchword.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank Norman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 14 March 2001 09:04
Subject: Re: Lapsed/NonRenewed Subscriptions and Loss of Access
to Ejournals
Lesley Crawshaw wrote:
> We have had several cases this year and last where problems in
the annual
> renewal of the print subscription has led to the loss of access
to the
> electronic journal.
.....
> Are others out there also suffering from this problem?
Oh yes! This very definitely echoes our experience. Academic
Press cut us off with no warning as they had not received payment
from our agent. (The cheque had got lost in the post). They
seemed to have NO interest in the quality of service to the
end-user
and NO conception that it would have been helpful to have alerted
us that the cut-off was about to occur.
I do think that online publishers need to rethink their approach
to
the online version of their journals and to treat them as
Services,
along with all that that term implies about "customer care" etc.
Frank Norman National Institute for Medical Research
Librarian The Ridgeway, Mill Hill
London NW7 1AA, UK
tel 020 8 913 8629 email [log in to unmask]
fax 020 8 913 8534
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