Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2001 17:17:44 -0400
From: Dani Lichtenberg <p005386b@pb.seflin.org>
Subject: Arrival times

I would very much appreciate hearing some discussion about arrival dates
for subscriptions received via such services as EBSCO.

One patron is adamant that our subscriptions arrive significantly later
than those of individual subscribers.  There are certain scholarly
journals (as we've been discussing recently) that simply are produced
later than they are supposed to be.  But he is refering to regular
commercial magazines.  I know the ones that I like to read seem arrive in
my branch right around the same time that I see them on the newsstands or
in my own mailbox.  But my patron is complaining about financial magazines
such as Smart Money and Fortune.  Can it be that Newsweek and Vogue come
in right on time, but the inscrutable EBSCO gods send the financial
magazines in late just to bedevil would be investors?

Does this patron have a valid complaint?  He is sure that "his" magazines
are being sent to a warehouse somewhere and that they just sit there until
they are yesterday's news and that then and only then are they sent to our
library.

Does anyone have any feelings about this theory one way or another?  Are
institutional subscriptions handled differently than individual
subscriptions?  A slower postage rate, perhaps?  A different distribution
system?

Thanks for your help,
Dani Lichtenberg
Palm Beach County Library System

p005386b@pb.seflin.org