Electronic Subscription Problems Lesley Tweddle 30 May 2000 13:45 UTC
Now that we use so many electronic databases or aggregations, we seem to be re-inventing the wheel in terms of supply. Many publishers require that we deal with them directly for electronic products. Electronic product delivery may be ethereal (though CD-ROMS aren't) but it still needs the usual apparatus for invoices. I spend more time trying to solve problems caused by this, than on any other correspondence. Publishers were always mediocre suppliers - that was why dealers came into being. Now we're forced to sidetrack our competent dealers and deal with companies whose weakest point is supply (especially overseas supply) and customer service. Typical problems are: -- inability to record the correct address (for invoices, CD-ROMs). -- inability to cope with special instructions that apply to overseas customers, e.g. send by express delivery; or send invoices early if using airmail. -- sending invoices on which the product name is referred to in some truncated code understood by their stock-keepers but not by us - or if by us, then perhaps not by our sceptical accountants. -- omitting to specify what subscription period is covered by the payment in hand. This is actually the norm, which astonishes me, because I'd have thought _their_ accountants would need that information as well as ours. -- plain not bothering to send a renewal invoice at all, but waiting till I write to ask for renewal. This seems to be the norm for electronic producers - even EbscoHost has never sent us a renewal invoice without being asked! (Some publishers just cut off e-access at the expire. This is a big step back - they were never so brusque with print subscriptions!) -- being extraordinarily difficult to communicate with, even by email. This includes not providing a stable contact person, forwarding endlessly to other people in the organization, saying something has been / will be taken care of when it hasn't; or simply: stubborn silence. The list of electronic producers who have committed some or all of the above in my experience includes Elsevier, Silverplatter, Gale, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, Lexis-Nexis, the ACM, Bowker, the AMS... They're not all as bad as each other. Some of them have contact people who are trying their best, but the organizational structure doesn't help, because supply is only a peripheral activity and its details are not the stuff of career development. Are other serials librarians finding the same problems? Has anyone found a solution? Lesley Tweddle Head, Serials Department American University in Cairo Library <ltweddle@aucegypt.edu>