Bill,
We have had serious problems in the past with our subscription to the
quarterly Science & Technology Libraries. Since 2001, when we began our
subscription to this title, we have faithfully paid our subscription
vendor each year for a complete year of S&TL.
Our problems began when the title became (was?) seriously behind in
publication. This was confounded by the aspect that the publication
dates on the journal webpages at the time didn't reflect the actual
journal cover dates. This made it very difficult to track down where
the problem was when we did not receive our issues in 2003 and 2004. We
are still missing volumes 22 and 23.
Looking through my records, our EBSCO invoice for 2003 has good detail.
It says that the payment in 2003 will be applied for volume 21 (pub.
dates 2001-2002). Then the next year in 2004, our Basch invoice (which
had no details), charged us one year's subscription rate, but has the
"Period" listed as 01/01/2004-12/31/2004. So begins the problem. The
title is behind schedule and when Haworth is paid in 2004, they apply
the payment towards volume 24 (pub dates 2003-2004). We now have a gap
of two volumes although we have paid for a year's subscription every
year since 2001.
The problem arises when the publisher of a quarterly that normally
publishes one volume per year tries to "catch up" and publishes two
extra volumes in a year. I don't think most subscription vendors are
going to pay out of pocket to cover Haworth printing two extra volumes
in a year to fix what is a publisher problem.
Here are the holdings for UNC-Chapel Hill from their online catalog:
v.19 (2000-01)
v.20 (2001)
v.21 (2001)
v.22 (2001-02)
v.23 (2002)
v.24 (2003-04)
v.25 (2004-05)
Notice that recently the publication schedule seems more current
although we have not received any 2006 issues although it is September.
I probably wouldn't be going to such lengths to detail our problems with
S&TL in this forum, but when I called Haworth Press customer service to
try to work out this problem, I was told that we had only paid for one
volume for that year.
When Haworth did this, a lot of libraries were actually penalized. When
I tried to explain to the customer service representative that we
couldn't just "come up" with 2 extra "years" of subscription money, she
didn't quite understand the concept. It was very frustrating and to
think that it was a library journal in which I had spent hours trying
figure out the problem and to obtain the missing
issues.............despite our paying for a subscription each year.
Another thought, if late publication schedules are beyond control, can
you provide instructions to your billing and customer service staff on
how to prevent the problems I encountered? Perhaps working more
proactively with the subscription agents? The vendors are under the
same assumption in that a quarterly generally only has one volume per
year.
Enough said. I know I'm a bit verbose, but I felt you should know how
being excessively late and also publishing more than one volume (for a
quarterly) per year affects your customers.
barb
barb dietsch | serials coordinator
epa library | unc contract staff
109 tw alexander drive | mail code c267-01
research triangle park, nc 27711
phone: 919.541.0726
fax: 919.541.1405
dietsch.barbara@epa.gov
"Bill Cohen,
Publisher, The
Haworth Press, To
Inc." SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
<bcohen7719@AOL. cc
COM>
Sent by: Subject
"SERIALST: Re: [SERIALST] Haworth journal
Serials in subscriptions
Libraries
Discussion
Forum"
<SERIALST@LIST.U
VM.EDU>
09/11/2006 02:27
PM
Please respond
to
"SERIALST:
Serials in
Libraries
Discussion
Forum"
<SERIALST@LIST.U
VM.EDU>
Victoria:
Thank you for bringing up this serious problem.
Haworth's journal rates and over-all planning are currently under real
revision, but we have
not yet time enough to exploit new technologies and bring the advantages
of the internet
back to the libraries. We will be able to do this after the current
subscription year.
1) Our rates will not, after the next season, exceed budgetary
increases in libraries.
2) We will make every effort to allow each individual library to retain
their existing collection,
and consider only new title that are priced low enough for serious
consideration, and
where high usage is predicted. By "low," I mean under $100 or under
$80.
3) We will also be providing *Journal Groups* so that smaller
collections are available at prices
equal to, or less than, the budgets available at each individualized
collections, as well as
consortia solutions for city, state, and regional consortia.
For your immediate situation, please contact myself or Mr. Roger Hall,
Senior Vice President
(contact us both, please!)
Bill Cohen, /Publisher & Editor-in-Chief/
The Haworth Press, Inc.
www.HaworthPress.com
victoria.peters@MNSU.EDU wrote:
> For years our library has struggled to keep payments up to date for
> Haworth journal titles without prepaying too far in advance for
> unpublished issues. We have alternated between direct with publisher
> orders and subscription agent servicing. In both cases, we have
failed
> to receive our issues and have not been invoiced for newly available
> issues as published.
>
> How are other libraries dealing with Haworth?
>
> Is this a problem for anyone else?
>
>
>
> You can reply directly to me: Victoria.peters@mnsu.edu
>
> Thank you for your assistance in addressing this ongoing problem.
>
>
>
>
>
> Victoria M. Peters
>
> Minnesota State University, Mankato
>
> 415 Malin Street, ML3097
>
> Mankato, MN 56001
>
> ph. 507 389 5050
>
> fax 507 389 2469
>
> victoria.peters@mnsu.edu
>
>
>
>
>
