Date:         Mon, 18 Mar 2002 09:12:12 +0800
From:         Alice Wong <amywonga@HKUCC.HKU.HK>
Subject:      Fair deal?

Dear Colleague,

        I am new to Serials but came across one problem in my first week
of this new area. We order, claim and invoice a title "Ambio" from the
Allen Press. The payment for year 2001 was made in Dec 2000 but so far we
have not received the issues v.30 no.4 - v.30 no. 7 (2001) and thus claims
were sent.

(1)  The replies from them are "I have checked your address and it is
correct in our system. ....It is our policy to replace only 3 issues free
of charge per subscription year. Claims in excess of three are considered
an indication of indiscriminate claiming" (2)  After we replied that the
issues they 'replaced' before were issues that had not been sent to us on
schedule until claims made, what they insisted was "without evidence of an
error on our part, I am still unable to replace issues in excess of 3 per
year"

        Maybe I am a green-horn, I do not expect payment done without
items is normal to serial subscription. I do not intend to engage in any
"publisher bashing" by posting this, but I'd like to know if anybody else
out there has experienced similar problems this year. Is it really a
common practice that subscribers have no guarantee in item supply?

Regards,

*************************************************
Alice Wong (Miss)
Acting Serials Librarian                          (T) : (852) 2859 2209
Serials Department                                 (F) : (852) 2546 5340
Hong Kong University Libraries
Pokfulam Road, H.K.