Courtney,

To be honest a lot depends on your vendors and publishers.  We have about
6,000 subscriptions and continuation orders here at UCR and obviously we
deal with claiming a lot.  I think you need to monitor vendors who fail you
and switch your subscriptions to more reliable source.
In terms of back issues sources we often use USBE although one never knows
what one will get or not.  Another good source that has been working out
very well for us is Absolute Backorder Service.  Their inventory is
available on line.  It helps greatly.
Here is link to their webpage:

http://www.absolute-inc.com/_/

All the best.

Kasia Stasik
Serials and Continuations Unit Supervisor
Technical Services
University of California Riverside
Library
Tel: (951) 827 2322
Fax: (951) 827 3720
kasia@ucr.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Bruch, Courtney
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 1:24 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] What to expect from a subscription service

Hello,

I'm a new librarian in charge of a print serials collection at a small
university library.  Currently we receive 90 print publications from a
subscription service.  Maybe I'm an idealist, but I'm surprised by the
number of claims I have had to make monthly; and how I am oftentimes
unable to receive a copies of a serial that should have been sent and
wasn't.  Does anyone have statistics on about how many claims are made
monthly at a library receiving about the same number of journals?  Or,
does a list ranking large serial jobbers exist?  Any advice would be
greatly appreciated.

Courtney Bruch

Reference Librarian

South University of Alabama

5355 Vaughn Road

Montgomery, AL  36116

334-395-8891

cbruch@southuniversity.edu

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