---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 08:48:54 -0500
From: "Skwor, Jeanette" <skworj@UWGB.EDU>
Subject: Re: Sports Illustrated (Lynne Stevens)

***Hey, at least you're *getting* Sports Illustrated!

***We haven't gotten an issue since May - they gave our renewal as a gift to
a program assistant on campus.  I found out about it only because an issue
was sent *by mistake* to the library, and we sort the mail.  This has
happened to me before - our subscription to _The Economist_ was given to a
professor on campus early last winter.  We were able to untangle that almost
immediately, but getting them to cease and desist took almost 5 months.

***Anyway, when I saw the suspicious _Sports Illustrated_, I called the
woman and gently asked her about her subscription.  She said they began
sending it in April, that she called *twice* & told them it was a mistake
(her husband gets it at home, and she was thinking they had goofed that up)
they insisted no, this is a *complimentary* subscription and they wanted her
to have it.  She could just pass it on to a friend if she wished.  I
immediately called my vendor rep, who had had absolutely no luck thus far in
convincing them we had a paid renewal, and she was on the phone with them
over an hour before they finally figured out the $$$ had been assigned to
the other person.
And we still haven't received an issue.

***With the Economist, the prof. called twice also, because he started
getting dups, and so they tacked another year onto his subscription,
insisting all the while that indeed, this was his subscription and he had it
coming.

***Wouldn't you think publishers/subscription clearing houses would have
*some* inkling that *once in awhile* they might err, and they should look at
accounts of those who have been claiming they aren't getting their
magazines?  Or that universities are not just one large-ish happy family,
where everyone throws their magazine on the coffee table for everyone to
read?

***Ok, that's my Friday morning rant. :)

***Thanks for listening . . .

 Jeanette Skwor     Cofrin Library     Serials Dept.
University of WI-Green Bay
Phone: (920) 465-2670       Fax: (920) 465-2783

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 16:03:58 -0400
> From: Lynne Stevens <lstevens@RMWC.EDU>
> Subject: Sports Illustrated
>
> I've about had it with special issues!  The latest gem is from Sports
> Illustrated.  According to the man I spoke to in their
> customer service
> office, the two most recent regular issues are correctly marked as:
> October 16, 2000   v.93 no.15
>         October 23, 2000   v.93 no.16.
> The "Special Olympic Commemorative Issue," dated October 18,
> 2000, also says
> v.93 no.16 on it.  The customer service rep informed me that
> they usually
> number a special issue like the preceding one, but with a
> letter after the
> number.  It looks like someone at SI forgot to tell the
> printer, who just
> used the next number.
>
> Depending on your level of obsession-compulsion, you could:
> call it 15A
> (which it should have been), call it 16A (to differentiate it from the
> "real" 16), call it 16 (having two with the same number but different
> dates), or list it under special issues and not give it a
> number at all.
>
> Our collective thanks to Newsweek, who primed us for this by
> sending us
> issue 17A last week!
>
> Lynne N. Stevens
> Serials Coordinator
> Lipscomb Library
> Randolph-Macon Woman's College
> 2500 Rivermont Avenue
> Lynchburg, VA  24503
> 804 947-8133
> lstevens@rmwc.edu
>