3 messages:

1)-------------------------------
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Catchword problems -- George Boston
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 15:39:45 -0600
From: Alfred Kraemer <akraemer@MCW.EDU>

Sending an email before cutting off access could -in most instances-
probably be done in a (semi-) automated fashion.
In most cases the unexpected 'cutoffs' occurred with publishers that
have
our email address from the initial registration. Creating (e.g.
scripting) a
procedure to send a canned email a certain number of weeks before the
cutoff
date if no renewal has been received is not that difficult.

Alfred Kraemer
Head, Technical Services
Medical College of Wisconsin Libraries
8701 Watertown Plank Road
Milwaukee, WI 53226

Phone: 414-456-4273
E-Mail: akraemer@mcw.edu

2)--------------------------------
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Catchword problems -- Susan Davis
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 16:18:05 -0600
From: Christopher Waldrop <Waldrop@LIBRARY.VANDERBILT.EDU>
Reply-To: "SEREDIT:  SERIALST Editors" <SEREDIT@LIST.UVM.EDU>
Organization: Vanderbilt University
To: SEREDIT@LIST.UVM.EDU

Susan,

You brought up an important point that I hadn't even thought of:
contact e-mail addresses are included as part of the license
agreements. With that information there's no excuse for the publisher
to not contact a library and let them know when access has been
activated, or when it's about to be turned off because of non-payment.
In the case of the journal that prompted me to write this, the publisher
had gotten the payment more than a month ago, and if I hadn't
contacted our vendor, I wonder whether we would ever have gotten a
response.

Two years ago I went through a great deal of trouble getting some
Blackwell Science journals activated. I sent repeated e-mails to the
contact person, but it wasn't until I looked up the name of someone
else at Blackwell Science and e-mailed them that I got a reply from the
person I'd been e-mailing all along. His excuse was that we hadn't
provided an e-mail address and that therefore he couldn't contact us.
This was in September. Our payment (and license agreement with an e-
mail contact address) had been submitted in June, and even though
we'd paid for a full year, he informed me that our access would be cut
off at the end of December.

A smart way to make money indeed.

Christopher Waldrop
Serials Coordinator
Vanderbilt University Library
Order Services Department
Tel: 615-343-3831
Fax: 615-343-8834

3)-------------------------------
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Catchword problems -- Christopher Waldrop
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 17:47:41 -0500
From: "Beth E. Meinert" <Beth.Meinert@INGENTA.COM>

Hello Christopher,

Thank you for your email and expressed concern over this issue.
Our apologies for your frustration.

The customer service team at CatchWord/Ingenta has looked into this
problem and rectified it. You'll be contacted personally by the head of
our customer service team regarding specific details of your
subscriptions.

It is the policy of most 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.

We encourage you to please contact our help desk at the first sign of
a problem so that we may address it immediately. They may be reached via
email at help@ingenta.com or 1-800-296-2221.

Again, our sincere apologies.

Regards,
Beth

_______________________________________________
BETH MEINERT
Marketing Manager, Library Services

Ingenta, Inc.
44 Brattle Street, 4th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

T +1 617 395 4000
F +1 617 395 4099
E beth.meinert@ingenta.com

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: Catchword problems -- John McDonald
> Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 14:20:23 -0500
> From: George Boston <george.boston@WMICH.EDU>
>
>
> I have to strongly second this view. Several of our electronic
> journals were summarily cut off because they were either incorrectly
> renewed or the publisher changed their access policies to include a
> extra surcharge for online access.
>
> It was just happenstance that either library staff or a patron
> noticed that access was cut off. It would be nice if a email
> reminder was sent to the contact person.
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> George Boston
> Software and Electronic Resource Specialist
> Serial Resources Department
> Dwight B. Waldo Library
> Western Michigan University
> 1903 W. Michigan Avenue
> Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5353
>
> Telephone: 616-387-5196 / FAX: 616-387-5193
> Email: george.boston@wmich.edu
>
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: Catchword problems -- Christopher Waldrop
> Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 09:11:40 -0800
> From: John McDonald <jmcdonald@LIBRARY.CALTECH.EDU>
>
>
> We often have difficulties with renewals for electronic journals.
> My
> count
> this past year was that 14% of our e-journals were incorrectly
> renewed
> or
> summarily cancelled.  Sometimes it is our subscription agent,
> sometimes
> it's
> our accounting department, but most of the time it's the publisher
> or
> electronic journal vendor.  All of these problems could have been
> corrected
> or dealt with prior to de-activating our subscription if we had
> only
> known.
>
>
> Vendors and publishers - is it too much to ask that you email the
> license
> administrator or institutional contact in these cases?  A quick,
> even
> machine-generated, form letter letting us know that our
> subscription
> hasn't
> been renewed will eliminate most of these problems.
>
>
>
> John McDonald
> Acquisitions Librarian
> California Institute of Technology
> Millikan Library 1-32
> Pasadena, CA 91125
> 626-395-6427
> 626-792-7540 fax
> john@library.caltech.edu
>
>
>
> --------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Catchword problems.
> Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 08:48:44 -0600
> From: Christopher Waldrop <Waldrop@LIBRARY.VANDERBILT.EDU>
> Organization: Vanderbilt University
>
>
> This year (2002) at Vanderbilt University Library we've had three
> separate subscription problems with online publications that are
> available through Catchword. Two of the titles were renewals, and
> the
> third was a new subscription. In the case of the renewals, our
> access
> was cut off without explanation, even though it was confirmed that
> the
> publisher had received and processed our payment. In the case of
> the
> new subscription, the publisher's received and processed our
> payment, but our subscription hasn't been activated yet.
>
> To make it even more frustration, we pay for all the titles
> through
> Swets, and, to his credit, our customer service representative has
> been
> very good about contacting the Catchword support staff. He's had
> to
> do so repeatedly because even after the support staff tells him
> our
> access is activated, it hasn't been.
>
> Has anyone else experienced similar problems?
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> Christopher Waldrop
> Serials Coordinator
> Vanderbilt University Library
> Order Services Department
> Tel: 615-343-3831
> Fax: 615-343-8834