3 messages: 1)------------------------------- -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Fwd: Subscription services -- Dian Larson Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 12:16:29 -0800 From: Carol Morse <MorsCa@wwc.edu> I personally don't see how Ebsco or any other subscription agent can help sending out added charges. Most publishers have not yet decided what they will charge for the next year's volumes in the summer when Ebsco sends out the renewal list. You really can't expect the agent to absorb the extra charges. They would be out of business in a few months if they did that. Carol Morse ******************************************************************************** Carol Morse Tel. 509) 527-2684 Serials Librarian Fax 509) 527-2001 Walla Walla College Library Email morsca@wwc.edu 104 S.W. Adams St. College Place, WA 99324-1195 Give us strength for the journey and wisdom to know the way. ******************************************************************************** -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Subscription Services Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2001 12:45:31 -0600 From: "Dian Larson" <dlarson@nwhealth.edu> EBSCO does send one big invoice, then individual ones throughout the year for each individual title increase or change, and the orginal invoice is almost never what we end up paying for the year. 2)-------------------------- -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Subscription Services -- Joseph Barnes Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 18:56:19 -0600 From: Corky Lee <clee@nslsilus.org> I have worked with serials in 2 different libraries and Ebsco is by far the best vendor to work with. Corky Lee Readers' Services Des Plaines Public Library clee@desplaines.lib.us.il 3)-------------------------- -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Subscription services Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 19:21:35 -0600 From: "Gillespie, Gaele" <ggillespie@UKANS.EDU> In response to various questions about subscription vendors and their services: As I understand it, the trade off of opting for Ebsco's optional guaranteed rate program is that while it prevents supplemental billings if there are price increases after your major renewal invoice, on the other hand you will not receive any credits when titles decrease in price or the original price was set too high at the time of the original billing and is adjusted later. You might want to discuss with your vendors the option of firm pricing. The titles are not billed until the actual subscription rate is released by the publishers. Once you're billed at the firm price (which is, after all, the actual price), you will not receive supplemental billings. We have accounts with the following vendors who adhere to firm pricing: Harrassowitz, Nijhoff, and now both the NJ Service Center as well as the Oxfordshire Service Center of Swets Blackwell. To address Joe Barnes' request for "vendor ratings" (and anyone who is interested in a method to choose an appropriate vendor): When asked to "rate" vendors services, I am always very careful in my responses, because I have found that one library's or customer's experience with the same vendor can be extremely variable -- Library A receives overall consistently great service from Vendor X and raves about them while Library B, which is within 150 miles of Library A or within the same region, finds that Vendor X offers only mediocre service, and so they're thinking of making a switch. I can't stress enough the importance of you giving serious thought to what services you need and expect from a subscription vendor and then proceeding in a non-anecdotal manner to chose the right vendor to meet your needs and expectations. Keep in mind that the important thing is to draw up a list of services you would want "The Ideal Vendor" to provide for you, and then the way in which you'd like them to provide those services. Together, these form your needs and expectations and will become your checklist on which to base your written "request for information" or RFI. (This doesn't have to be ultra formal -- RFIs can vary from informal to really formal -- but you don't want to be so informal as to not have things in writing. Of course, if you're going out on bid with your journal list, then things would need to be more formal.) You would want to submit that document along with your list of titles for quotation to a predetermined number of vendors so that you will receive responses that will allow you to compare and contrast their stated services with your stated needs and expectations -- and for you to compare each vendor's response with the others (how are they similar? how do they differ? in what critical or crucial ways?) One of the things you would want to include in your RFI is a request for a list of customers with libraries the size and scope of yours that you can speak candidly with about that vendors' services. You can word the request so that the vendors can't give you just any satisfied customer -- you need realistic customers with collections and title lists comparable to yours against whom you measure each vendor's services. This doesn't mean that when you call and ask each reference your compiled set of questions that some anecdotal information won't be exchanged -- it's just that you'll be far more able to weigh and evaluate that information when you've already done your own assessment of what *you* need and expect from a subscription vendor. -- Gaele Gillespie / Serials Librarian / University of Kansas Libraries ggillespie@ukans.edu
