My personal opinion is that this is pretty tacky on their part.
Carol Morse

********************************************

Address:
Walla Walla College Library
Periodicals Dept.
104 S. College Ave.
College Place, WA  99324-1159

Carol Morse
Serials Librarian morsca@wwc.edu
509) 527-2684; fax 509) 527-2001
*********************************************

>>> skworj@UWGB.EDU 9/22/2004 11:56:03 AM >>>
***An update -  I called Deborah Blok, the Customer Care Supervisor at
Commonwealth Business Media, on this; she is the person I quoted below
stating that the 2003 graced issues were subtracted from our 2004
subscription.  She was quite adamant, but later consulted with the
Director of Circulation.  The upshot is they will not correct the
subscription dates; this is "Standard Policy in the publishing
industry"
and they are standing firm.  "All they can do" is see to it that
issues
are not graced at the end of our current subscription period, which
also
means we will not receive any renewal notice.  (I'm not sure how that
follows, but it's what I was told.)

***I find it interesting that they, as well as I, use the term "graced
issues".  Apparently Commonwealth Business Media uses a different
dictionary than we have here at the library, to define "grace".

***Has anyone dealt with this before?  I have to admit in eleven years
on the job, it's a first for me.   Don't "graced issues" fall under
the
law regarding unordered merchandise?

Jeanette L. Skwor
Cofrin Library
University of WI-Green Bay
(920) 465-2670

"Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money
will
get you through times of no libraries."
                              Anne Herbert, The Whole Earth Catalog

> _____________________________________________
> From:         Skwor, Jeanette
> Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 8:10 AM
> To:   Serialst
> Subject:      How not to win friends and influence people - Traffic
> World
>
> Or, at least, not influence them to any respect towards you -
>
> Traffic World was one of our subscriptions affected by the divine,
> Inc. bankruptcy.  They did not sign the PPA and made no promise to
> grace the issues.  However, though our paid subscription expired
with
> the Sept. 3, 2003 issue, they did send 9 more issues before they
> stopped.
>
> We could not afford to pay twice for the majority of our
> subscriptions, and so a certain number of them that were not graced
> just had to be allowed to lapse.  Traffic World was one of those
> titles.
>
> Now we're well into 2004, a new vendor, and new subscriptions.  We
> requested renewal of  Traffic World to begin with Sept 2004 and run
> through August 2005, and we did get, for our first issue, the Aug.
30,
> 2004 issue.  However, the expiration date shown on the label is June
> 13, 2005.
>
> I contacted our vendor.
>
> I just received the response - Traffic World informed them that they
> had graced us 9 issues on our previous subscription and have
> *subtracted* those graced issues from the current subscription, to
wit
> - "The subscriber is due 51 issues, this number includes the nine
> issues that were graced in 2003."
>
> My take on it:  "Let's see - we'll grace these people just in case
> they are planning to renew but their renewal is delayed, and if they
> are dropping us forever we'll take the loss.  However, if they do
> renew eventually, we'll stick them for those freebies.  That'll
teach
> 'em."
>
> Yup, I'm taught.   And of course I will contact them and protest.
But
> I also thought this is one of those new and unique marketing ideas
> that needs to be shared with other serialsters.
>
> Jeanette L. Skwor
> Cofrin Library
> University of WI-Green Bay
> (920) 465-2670
>
> "Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money
> will get you through times of no libraries."
>                               Anne Herbert, The Whole Earth Catalog
>
>
>