Apologies for the delayed posting.  This message was just received by
the moderator.   -bml

--------------- fowarded message ---------------
Date: Wed, 04 Dec 96 08:21:00 PST
 From: Stephen Lacey <slacey@nla.gov.au>
 Subject: RE: Renewal notices

In response to Steve Murden's concern about publisher renewal notices, I
have been working in serial acquisitions for over 15 years in one way or
another.  Every so often I have also felt swamped by the volume of renewal
notices and in the past I have tried contacting both publishers and vendors
in an attempt to reduce the volume.  Alas, this has only been slightly
successful.

Since we are sometimes forced to deal with publishers direct (those that do
not deal with vendors), we feel the need to check as many of these renewals
as possible rather than tossing them straight in the bin.

In this age of ever changing technology and new vendor services, I think
there may be a saviour.  In recent years we have been trialling
"consolidation services" with various vendors which, indirectly, has reduced
the amount of publishers renewal notices.  Vendors ask that titles be sent
to their central warehouse/onforwarding centre for accessioning, claiming,
repackaging for bulk despatch etc..  The centre is usually located in the
country of origin of the title and the publisher is provided with the
vendors "consolidation ship to address" only; the library's address is not
therefore provided to the publisher and hence no renewal notices are sent to
the library.  I have found we not only receive the benefits that a
consolidation service can provide but we also get the added bonus of reduced
renewal notices.

Regarding the notices about postal addresses, I do not know the US Postal
Regulations but these requests do seem strange.  Perhaps their computer
system requires all address fields to be completed otherwise it spits the
dummy (pacifier?).  I have usually disregarded this type of notice as we do
not have a clear street address and due to the size of the organization we
can be easily found by the local postal authorities without a street
address; therefore it is not included on our letterheads, labels etc.

I hope I have given you something to ponder on.

Regards

Stephen Lacey
Manager, Serial Orders
National Library of Australia
Tel: (06) 2621321
Fax: (06) 2734322
E-MAIL:  slacey@nla.gov.au