Dear Barbara

Thank you for responding to the list and it is very welcome news that the problems will be addressed.

Perhaps you could also help us on a couple of points, and indicate how we can best stop these kinds of problems occurring or escalating.

First, it seems unfortunate that, as you state, that your organisation was unaware of the problems until these many emails of the past couple of days. If we have problems in the future, who should we contact to help solve them as there seems to be some breakdown in communication somewhere.

You appear to be saying that the problems are caused by our subscription agents not providing the correct information. Can you tell us what this information is that you specifically need, so that we can make a point next year of reminding our agents (and some people have said they had problems even ordering directly) that they need to give this information when ordering/renewing? It must be some information that is not normally required by publishers, as we have not heard of similar widespread problems with any other publisher.

Thanks very much.
Sandra




Sandra Morris
Electronic Information Development Officer
Subject Support & E-Library Team,
Information Services,
Hugh Owen Library,
Aberystywth University,
Aberystwyth,
Ceredigion,  SY23 3DZ
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Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 01970 621892
   FAX: (01970) 622404 

Tîm Cynorthwywyr Pwnc ac E-Lyfrgell,
Gwasanaethau Gwybodaeth,
Llyfrgell Hugh Owen,
Prifysgol Aberystwyth,
Ceredigion,  SY23 3DZ
====================================
Ffon: 01970 621892
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-----Original Message-----
From: An informal open list set up by the UK Serials Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Goldman, Barbara
Sent: 17 April 2008 21:46
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Reponse from ASM to recent postings


As the new director of the ASM journals program, I would like to let members of the UK Serials Group listserve know that we've read your recent postings and now are aware of the high degree of frustration you've been experiencing.  Since the first post to this listserve a couple of days ago, we have been investigating the source of the problems and working to resolve them.

ASM has begun to restore service to customers who have notified us of access problems--either directly or via postings to this listserve--while we work with subscription agents to get the information and payments that still have not been received.  .

The problems you've described usually stem from orders submitted by your subscription agents that are missing full payment and/or enduser information required to activate the subscriptions. Our policy until now has been to grace customers through March 15 while we work with agents to obtain complete order details and full payment.  If the agents do not respond by mid-March, access has been cut off.

We are working to immediately reinstate access to affected customers and will contact them to resolve payment before the new grace period expires on May 19th. .If you are experiencing access problems, I'd encourage you to contact your subscriptions agents to let them know full payment is past due. Please also feel free to cc: me, so that I may alert our subscriptions fulfillment staff.  Alternatively, you may contact customer service directly, as follows;
Email:  [log in to unmask]
Phone: 205-995-1567
Fax: 205-995-1588

My goal as I get up to speed in my new position is to bring ASM policies more in line with other publishers' best practices, so that we provide a quality of customer service that is commensurate with the quality of ASM's journals.  We are modifying our policies so that customers don't lose access to our valuable journals when it's clear that their intent always was to order appropriately.  In the future, we'll also be sure to give librarians advance notice before terminating access because correct payment has not been received, so that you can follow up with your agents directly.  

I'd like to thank you in advance both for your feedback and your patience as we work toward better serving our customers. 

Barbara Goldman
Director, Journals, ASM
[log in to unmask]


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Barbara M. Goldman, Ph.D.
Director, Journals
American Society for Microbiology
1752 N St. NW
Washington, DC 20036-2904
202-942-9239
[log in to unmask]
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