Re: Your Ebsco Service and Ebsconet Stokes, Judith 28 Sep 2004 14:29 UTC
Hi, To Victoria and other Ebsco customers changing from print to online: Looking up every title in Ebsconet would indeed be a big job. Under "Reports" select "Online Availability" and you will get a report of all your print titles that Ebsco also sells as print + online and/or online only. Some will not have prices because you have to negotiate directly with the publisher to get one (e.g. Elsevier deals with different libraries on different terms). Anyway, if you do this first, then check just your remaining titles in Ulrich's for online versions that Ebsconet does not show, it'll go much faster. Also, I suggest you e-mail MCoombs@Ebsco.com about your preference for online. She has prepared spreadsheets for me with prices for various publishers when they have changed their online terms. If you tell her your requirements -- like do you want IP recognition only or is passworded online ok -- she can be very helpful. As for Ebsco service compared with Faxon, yes, I missed some features when I left Faxon for Ebsco in 1994, but overall, Ebsco fulfillment has been good, and that's number one for my library. We do get what we pay for. Good luck, Judith E. Stokes, Serials Librarian Adams Library, Rhode Island College 600 Mt. Pleasant Avenue Providence, RI 02908 (401)456-8165 JStokes@RIC.edu -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Harriston, Victoria Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 8:43 AM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Your Ebsco Service and Ebsconet Colleagues, The National Academies Library is now an Ebsco customer after being caught up in, and severely impacted by, the Faxon bankruptcy. Since becoming an Ebsco customer we have not experienced the level of customer service that I, personally, would have expected from Ebsco. Our library, like so many of you, is struggling to meet budgetary constraints for our journal subscriptions while still offering a high-value, high impact, multi-disciplinary journals collection. We are in the throes of our annual journals renewal process and just completed a journal survey with our program division staff which clearly indicated that they prefer online access to journals vs. print only and in some cases a print + online combination. We had hoped to use Ebsco's Ebsconet database to determine costs for online only journal titles however, the database has not proven to be very useful and in fact our Research Librarian reported his frustration using Ebsconet and found that the EBSCO Net Serials Management System extremely frustrating to use for looking up prices, especially for online subscriptions. He frequently found no indication that a title had online availability but then checked our Ulrich's Online directory or would go directly to the publishers' web site and found that there was obviously some kind of online subscription available. The database is not reliable for this kind of information. I know that discussions of subscription agents has been a topic of this listserv but I'd like to hear from libraries who are former Faxon customers, that perhaps like us, moved our subscriptions management to Ebsco and what kind of service have you received and to everyone using Ebsconet, what is your view of this subscription management tool. You can reply directly to me and I will summarize all responses for everyone on the list. My thanks, in advance, to everyone. Victoria Harriston (vharriston@nas.edu) Victoria Harriston, MLS Library Manager The National Academies George E. Brown, Jr. Library 500 5th Street NW Washington, DC 20001 Office: (202) 334-2327 Fax: (202) 334-1651 vharriston@nas.edu National Academies: http://www.nas.edu George E. Brown, Jr. Library: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/nrclibrary/index.html "Meeting the research, advisory, and educational needs of the advisors to the nation on science, engineering and medicine"