Hallo Judy,

You asked if there were any List members in Africa - well here I am, in
Egypt.

You asked

> How International do you feel is the list? Does the list center on
American concerns over those of an international nature?

Because I'm working in an American university, I suppose I feel the List
is relevant to most of my professional concerns.

But there are naturally aspects of NOT being inside the USA that leave
US librarians unmoved and therefore don't whip up the kind of List
support that can sometimes move mountains... and I have passing regrets
for this.

For example, no-one on Serialst is likely to feel unduly outraged by the
profiteering that goes on when publishers charge us the International
rate for subscriptions, even when they are mailing those subscriptions
to an address in the USA.  Our dealers tell us "the publisher cares
about where the end user is" - but in a case like ours, what are the
extra expenses that justify such a high surcharge?  Will any Serialsters
man the barricades with me?

Nor am I likely to arouse an effective lobby if I complain about the
ignorance shown by US suppliers of the time it takes for an air mail
letter to reach a foreign country, (15 days from here to the USA or in
the other direction).  Those two transits effectivly eat up the "payment
within 30 days" rule without allowing time for the Library to process
the invoice OR the University accounts office to produce the cheque.
This has a huge impact on the number of "why haven't you paid" mailings
we have to deal with.

Our major vendors are OK, but for Internet subscriptions we have to deal
directly with an increasing number of publishers (usually of the HUGE,
couldn't-care-less variety).  You folks can dial a toll-free number and
bash on until you reach someone who seems human enough to work on the
problem, so once again, I don't have much hope of List solidarity in
this battle.

Perhaps the fact that we have an extra line in our address (I mean
"EGYPT") increases the tendency of suppliers to edit out anything
inessential like "LIBRARY" - which means the CD, or whatever it is, goes
wandering round the whole University (including the Bookstore) until it
just gets adopted or thrown out.  Any volunteers to campaign on that?

In those respects, therefore, Serialst seems very US-delimited.  But
apart from that it is my favourite Listserve, and I bless its patient
Moderators who correct typos and prevent the flooding of the entire List
with messages about subscribing and unsubscribing.

Cheers, all

Lesley Tweddle
American University in Cairo Library
 <ltweddle@aucegypt.edu>