Hear hear! re electronic claiming. I'm finding that it really expedites
the claims process and also results in a higher success rate.
At a recent periodicals interest meeting of local librarians, there was
sort of a concensus, based on experience, that a lot of vendors don't
really move too fast on a first claim...that, in fact, it usually isn't
until a second claim is made that they pass the claim along to a
publisher.
My colleagues' experience (and mine) has also borne out, unfortunately,
that by the time a lot of second claims are made, the publishers' grace
periods for claiming has expired.
All the more reason to get in a first claim as soon as possible, which
(in our case, thanks to Ebsconet) we can do online as soon as we're
aware that an issue is missing.
Cheers, all!

Max Shenk
Periodicals Assistant
Montgomery County Community College Library
Blue Bell, PA

"What is truth? I don't know, and I'm sorry I raised the point"--
Edward Abbey

>>> aew@CANES.GSW.EDU 01/16/03 09:43AM >>>
Laura - Does your vendor have a website whereby missing issues can be
claimed electronically--that really helped us since they do the
claiming -
in the past, we called the publishers to claim missing issues.
On our electronic checkin system, a claims form can be printed out,
but
there again was the extra step of then having to fax it to the
publisher.

Amy

At 09:17 PM 1/15/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Hello,
>
>In my frustration in dealing with journal issues that have ceased
coming
>without my knowledge (how can this possibly happen?), I am turning to
the list
>for advice.
>
>In the 10 years that I have been managing our serials collection, I
am
>constantly frustrated by late issues that fall through the cracks.  I
check in
>issues using a DRA system.  It has claiming capabilities but I have
never been
>pleased with the reports I get.  It often doesn't pick up issues that
need to
>be claimed (due to a deviation factor that is set up in the system
that lets
>you know when you should expect the next issue.)  It also sticks a
bunch of
>issues on the report that don't need to be claimed (see deviation
note,
>previous sentence!)
>
>I am curious as to the methods other schools use to track late or
never
>received issues?  Does your system have reporting capabilities and do
you run
>these reports every week or month?  Do you have some manual way of
keeping
>track?  Any and all input, advice, etc. would be welcome.
>
>With the divine fiasco that is going on (we had 95% of our
subscriptions with
>them - over 750 titles), this claiming issue is becoming even more of
a
>challenge!
>
>Regards,
>Laura
>
>Laura Vogler
>Serials Manager
>Wabash College Library
>301 West Wabash Avenue
>Crawfordsville IN 47933