Now that we use so many electronic databases or aggregations, we seem to
be re-inventing the wheel in terms of supply.  Many publishers require
that we deal with them directly for electronic products.  Electronic
product delivery may be ethereal (though CD-ROMS aren't) but it still
needs the usual apparatus for invoices.  I spend more time trying to
solve problems caused by this, than on any other correspondence.

Publishers were always mediocre suppliers - that was why dealers came
into being.  Now we're forced to sidetrack our competent dealers and
deal with companies whose weakest point is supply (especially overseas
supply) and customer service.

Typical problems are:

-- inability to record the correct address (for invoices, CD-ROMs).

-- inability to cope with special instructions that apply to overseas
customers, e.g. send by express delivery; or send invoices early if
using airmail.

-- sending invoices on which the product name is referred to in some
truncated code understood by their stock-keepers but not by us - or if
by us, then perhaps not by our sceptical accountants.

-- omitting to specify what subscription period is covered by the
payment in hand.  This is actually the norm, which astonishes me,
because I'd have thought _their_ accountants would need that information
as well as ours.

-- plain not bothering to send a renewal invoice at all, but waiting
till I write to ask for renewal.  This seems to be the norm for
electronic producers - even EbscoHost has never sent us a renewal
invoice without being asked!  (Some publishers just cut off e-access at
the expire.  This is a big step back - they were never so brusque with
print subscriptions!)

-- being extraordinarily difficult to communicate with, even by email.
This includes not providing a stable contact person, forwarding
endlessly to other people in the organization, saying something has been
/ will be taken care of when it hasn't; or simply: stubborn silence.

The list of electronic producers who have committed some or all of the
above in my experience includes Elsevier, Silverplatter, Gale, Cambridge
Scientific Abstracts, Lexis-Nexis, the ACM, Bowker, the AMS...  They're
not all as bad as each other.  Some of them have contact people who are
trying their best, but the organizational structure doesn't help,
because supply is only a peripheral activity and its details are not the
stuff of career development.

Are other serials librarians finding the same problems?  Has anyone
found a solution?

Lesley Tweddle
Head, Serials Department
American University in Cairo Library
<ltweddle@aucegypt.edu>