From: Gillespie, Gaele
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2001 11:57 AM
Subject: RE: Centrobe / Neodata of Boulder, CO: A Plea for Responses
(Linda Fairbanks)
In response to Linda Fairbanks's posting about supplemental billings and
quality of vendor services:
If you don't want to deal with supplemental invoices, then consider
renegotiating your account/invoicing profile with your vendor(s) to bill you
on the firm-pricing model. Firm pricing means that your vendor will bill you
only when they get the actual, firm price of a subscription/standing order
title from the publisher. It is when vendors bill you *before* they have the
actual, firm prices that you will receive supplemental invoices for price
increases that occur between the time the vendor invoices you and the time
that the publisher actually sets the firm price for the title and invoices
the vendor. In our experience, Swets Blackwell (both the NJ and Oxfordshire
service centers), Nijhoff, and Harrassowitz are the most amenable to and
consistent with firm pricing (it means less work for them, too, when you
think about the labor involved with supplemental invoicing); Ebsco and Faxon
are less inclined to either remember to abide by the firm-pricing model from
year to year (even after it's been requested as part of your account/invoice
profile), or are not set up to do it, or do not care to do it -- in other
words, it takes more negotiation, follow-up and monitoring with Ebsco and
Faxon than with Swets Blackwell, Nijhoff, and Harrassowitz. Ebsco does have
a "service" (we don't use it, so I don't know what it's called -- but it was
discussed on SERIALST a few months ago and if you search the archives,
you'll find those postings) which involves a fee of some sort whereby you
will not get supplemental invoices even if you've prepaid early (before the
publisher has set their prices), but you will also not receive any credit
memos for the price decreases that also can, and will, occur. However, it
just doesn't make sense to agree to pay an additional fee to a vendor to NOT
create supplemental invoices when the solution exists via the firm-pricing
option.
And take heart, Linda, because YES (speaking for myself and my staff), we
certainly like our subscription services. No vendor does everything
perfectly, and some could do certain things better, but our vendors also
provide a variety of important services. Maintaining optimal levels of
vendor-publisher-customer communication is an on-going challenge. Also,
quality of service is a shared responsibility: to ensure that the
vendor-publisher-customer relationship is all it can be, we have a
responsibility to review and monitor our vendors' services and then request
changes and improvements where necessary and desirable. -- Gaele
E. Gaele Gillespie / Serials Librarian / University of Kansas Libraries /
e-mail: ggillespie@ukans.edu / phone: 785-864-3051
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 10:56:21 -0500
From: Linda Fairbanks <lfairban@TRITON.CC.IL.US>
Subject: Re: Centrobe / Neodata of Boulder,
CO: A Plea for Responses (Stephen Perisho)
Hi Stephen
Your message really strikes home. Last Friday I spent time writing a
similar rant about EBSCOhost, who handles our periodical subscriptions. We
have had a terrible time with publishers sending us two or even three
subsriptions where we only (should!) have one and it has taken EBSCO way
too long to stop it. We also get price increases passed on to us
constantly. Admitedly, I'm new to managing serials, but I would have
thought that having paid for a year's subscription, I'd get a year at that
price. Do all subscription services simply agree to and then send on,
publishers random price increases? I'm not sure which made me angrier, the
invoice for a $6 price rise or the one for a couple thousand. I wish I
could tell you I was happy with my service, but I'm not. Does anybody out
there LIKE their subscription service?
Linda
Linda C. Fairbanks
Director of Technical Services
Triton College Library, R-214B
2000 Fifth Avenue
River Grove, IL 60171
Office: (708) 456-0300 x3424
e-mail: <lfairban@triton.cc.il.us>
http://www.triton.cc.il.us
