I saw on a UK listserv that there is a press release on the Swets website.
http://www.swets.com/news/swets-information-services-bv-declared-bankrupt#.
It’s possible that the North American operations are solvent, but that information is unlikely to be confirmed or disproved this week, if I read the release correctly.
I know many of you are gun shy after the divine debacle. We lost a lot of money and spent an incredible amount of staff time dealing with who was paid, who wasn’t, working with publishers, and then handling many,
many duplicate print issues. Still, I would like to wait until we hear from the North American Swets office before I jump off the cliff. I hope the Swets people will be able to respond quickly because all our patience and understanding has a short shelf
life. In this case, no news is the worst news.
In these recessionary times it is very disheartening to learn that at least 130 people’s jobs have been terminated in the Netherlands. It will be even sadder to learn that more terminations are coming.
I have always believed in the value of subscription agents and the services they provide, and hope there is always a real choice in the marketplace. Since agents provide a service, the value(s) of any one agent
is very subjective according to the needs of each library customer. Personally, I do not want to be working directly with publisher accounts payable, customer service and so forth. Some publishers have great service, but many do not; at least not for large
public academic libraries. We could not possibly cope with individual payments; New York State implemented a new online statewide financial system that does not permit the library to view the status of payments to our vendors. Copy of a cancelled check or
EBT deposit; not in any timely fashion if possible at all.
Thank you for remaining calm,
Susan
Susan Davis
Acquisitions Librarian for Continuing Resources
University at Buffalo (SUNY)
134 Lockwood Library
Buffalo, NY 14260-2210
716-645-2784
716-645-5955 fax
unlsdb@buffalo.edu
http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/staff/index.asp?ID=124
From: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG]
On Behalf Of Aaron, Amira
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 6:28 PM
To: SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Swets
Just to be clear, the Faxon reps were not aware that there was a problem or that the payments were not going out to publishers. According to the system the checks were being sent out, but then divine executives held the money at the other
end. As a former Faxon manager for many years, I can assure you that the reps were horrified when they learned the truth and realized that they had unwittingly misled their customers and friends.
It's very sad to us former Faxon staff and customers to see this happening again, but hopefully the warning came earlier and the losses will be much less.
Amira
************************
Amira Aaron
Associate Dean, Scholarly Resources
Northeastern University Libraries
Sent from my iPad
On Sep 23, 2014, at 5:46 PM, "Laura Vogler" <Voglerl@WABASH.EDU> wrote: