Here at Geneva College we use Ebsco and I truly cannot imagine how it would be more cost effective for me to do everything myself (I assume that’s what the Dean is thinking).  There are literally not enough hours in my work day.  Not only does my customer service agent have more contacts than I do at publishers, but they also have databases of back-issues, ways to get missed issues, a way to keep all of our money accounted for and in one place, resources for dealing with publishers who either fold or are not fulfilling their obligation, and a database of volume/issues for most journals so I know whether to claim a journal or not.  If I had to research all of this myself it would take almost all of my time, leaving nothing for other tasks.  Not only that, I would have to devise a system for keeping things organized, a monumental task and one that still requires paper because I often find that I need to refer back to the hard copies when I manage the handful of titles we order direct.  There’s another added cost in paper.  I would need more student workers too, another added cost to giving up an agent.  And we all know how frustrating it is dealing with publishers.  Half the time you never get a response.  I feel that giving up a serials jobber is not a wise use of a college’s resources.  Anyone suggesting going that direction if you have more than 100 titles clearly has no idea what this job entails and what it’s like dealing with the world of serials.

 

 

Abbigail Stauber

Library Technician

 

P: 724.847.6693  - F:  724.847.6687

 

acgregg@geneva.edu

GENEVA COLLEGE  3200 College Ave., Beaver Falls, PA 15010

 

 

 

Hello all,

 

Our Dean has been making noises about the possibility of our abandoning the use of a subscription agent and handling subscription/renewal/claiming/billing issues ourselves.  Despite our having reduced the number of individually priced titles from thousands to hundreds by grasping publisher packages, I still shudder at the idea of trying to do this ourselves. 

 

Over the past couple of years I have seen eloquent justifications for the use of serials jobbers posted to the listserv by colleagues, particularly in the wake of the Swets collapse.  Regrettably, I cannot find any of these in my e-mail archive.   So I appeal to our collective wisdom for specifics as to why the use of a jobber is efficient and cost-effective.  Certainly I have reasons why I would prefer not to discontinue the use of a jobber, but being able to include comments from other libraries will simply strengthen my argument, or remind me of things that I have forgotten or never experienced.

 

So please feed me your comments, justifications, and experiences, good or bad. 

 

Thanks.

 

mb

 

W. Michael Bell

Assistant Dean and Head of Collection Services Department

UTC Library

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

423-425-2670

mike-bell@utc.edu

 

 

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