3 messages:

1)-------------------------------

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Subscription services -- Dian Larson
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 12:16:29 -0800
From: Carol Morse <MorsCa@wwc.edu>

I personally don't see how Ebsco or any other subscription agent can
help sending out added charges.  Most publishers have not yet decided
what they will charge for the next year's volumes in the summer when
Ebsco sends out the renewal list.  You really can't expect the agent to
absorb the extra charges.  They would be out of business in a few months
if they did that.
Carol Morse

********************************************************************************
Carol Morse                                                  Tel.  509)
527-2684
Serials Librarian                                             Fax 509)
527-2001
Walla Walla College Library                     Email  morsca@wwc.edu
104 S.W. Adams St.
College Place, WA  99324-1195

Give us strength for the journey and wisdom to know the way.
********************************************************************************

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Subscription Services
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 12:45:31 -0600
From: "Dian Larson" <dlarson@nwhealth.edu>

EBSCO does send one big invoice, then individual ones throughout the
year for each individual title increase or change, and the orginal
invoice is almost never what we end up paying for the year.

2)--------------------------
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Subscription Services -- Joseph Barnes
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 18:56:19 -0600
From: Corky Lee <clee@nslsilus.org>

I have worked with serials in 2 different libraries and Ebsco is by far
the best vendor to work with.
Corky Lee
Readers' Services
Des Plaines Public Library
clee@desplaines.lib.us.il

3)--------------------------
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Subscription services
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 19:21:35 -0600
From: "Gillespie, Gaele" <ggillespie@UKANS.EDU>

In response to various questions about subscription vendors and their
services:

As I understand it, the trade off of opting for Ebsco's optional
guaranteed
rate program is that while it prevents supplemental billings if there
are
price increases after your major renewal invoice, on the other hand you
will
not receive any credits when titles decrease in price or the original
price
was set too high at the time of the original billing and is adjusted
later.

You might want to discuss with your vendors the option of firm pricing.
The
titles are not billed until the actual subscription rate is released by
the
publishers.  Once you're billed at the firm price (which is, after all,
the
actual price), you will not receive supplemental billings.  We have
accounts
with the following vendors who adhere to firm pricing:   Harrassowitz,
Nijhoff, and now both the NJ Service Center as well as the Oxfordshire
Service Center of Swets Blackwell.

To address Joe Barnes' request for "vendor ratings" (and anyone who is
interested in a method to choose an appropriate vendor):
When asked to "rate" vendors services, I am always very careful in my
responses, because I have found that one library's or customer's
experience
with the same vendor can be extremely variable -- Library A receives
overall
consistently great service from Vendor X and raves about them while
Library
B, which is within 150 miles of Library A or within the same region,
finds
that Vendor X offers only mediocre service, and so they're thinking of
making a switch.  I can't stress enough the importance of you giving
serious
thought to what services you need and expect from a subscription vendor
and
then proceeding in a non-anecdotal manner to chose the right vendor to
meet
your needs and expectations.  Keep in mind that the important thing is
to
draw up a list of services you would want "The Ideal Vendor" to provide
for
you, and then the way in which you'd like them to provide those
services.
Together, these form your needs and expectations and will become your
checklist on which to base your written "request for information" or
RFI.
(This doesn't have to be ultra formal -- RFIs can vary from informal to
really formal -- but you don't want to be so informal as to not have
things
in writing. Of course, if you're going out on bid with your journal
list,
then things would need to be more formal.)  You would want to submit
that
document along with your list of titles for quotation to a predetermined
number of vendors so that you will receive responses that will allow you
to
compare and contrast their stated services with your stated needs and
expectations -- and for you to compare each vendor's response with the
others (how are they similar? how do they differ? in what critical or
crucial ways?) One of the things you would want to include in your RFI
is a
request for a list of customers with libraries the size and scope of
yours
that you can speak candidly with about that vendors' services.  You can
word
the request so that the vendors can't give you just any satisfied
customer
-- you need realistic customers with collections and title lists
comparable
to yours against whom you measure each vendor's services.  This doesn't
mean
that when you call and ask each reference your compiled set of questions
that some anecdotal information won't be exchanged -- it's just that
you'll
be far more able to weigh and evaluate that information when you've
already
done your own assessment of what *you* need and expect from a
subscription
vendor.

-- Gaele Gillespie / Serials Librarian / University of Kansas Libraries
ggillespie@ukans.edu