Re: Starting up with Ebsco Elyse Baum-Hayes 18 Apr 2005 20:32 UTC
I have been here for the move to put almost all of our 300 titles on to our EBSCO annual invoice. (Before only half our titles were through a vendor.) It has been rough, and we have been bothered with duplicate copies, and lots of calls to our service rep. because of the expiration dates, etc. But we are pleased with the service we received from EBSCO this year (the transitional year). Elyse Hayes Library Director Seminary of the Immaculate Conception Huntington, NY -----Original Message----- From: Edwards, Mary [mailto:meedwards@AII.EDU] Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 10:32 AM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: [SERIALST] Starting up with Ebsco Hello! We are a small academic library with approximately 300 magazine subscriptions. Since we're an art/design/culinary school (primarily, although we'll be adding other non-art programs through a sister school), our subscriptions range from popular, to business, to art/culinary/video specific. As expected, some of our subscriptions are from overseas or from smaller independent publishers. We have never used a subscription service and I would like to start using one to help streamline the whole thing. My questions for you Ebsco (or other vendor) users are: How easy was the "normalization" process of expiration dates when moving from in-house to subscription? We have a variety of expiration dates, based on each publication and how they were renewed (single or multi-year). I'm sure we can phase this in over time, but that leads to the next question. Over time, did the cost of your overall subscriptions start to balloon because of the differences you found in what your service charges for each subscription vs. going directly to the publisher? I've noticed that the differences in cost, in some cases, are pretty substantial. How did the service charge you for those publications that are not in their catalog? There are several we get that I don't see in Ebsco's catalog. Were there publications (e.g., free trade magazines or newspapers) that you didn't have the subscription service handle? If so, was that problematic to staff in check-in or claiming? Did you have any problems with your service that were "righteous pains" to resolve? I know this can vary regionally, so if any Southern California users want to weigh in on this one, I'm all ears (all eyes??)! I would love to simplify my life by starting up with a service, but want to call on the collective wisdom to prepare for the "gotchas"! Many thanks! Mary Edwards Librarian Art Institute of California - Los Angeles 2900 31st Street Santa Monica, CA 90405 310-314-6154 meedwards@edmc.edu