Dear Mr Cohen,
I've been following the SERIALS discussion on the unpredictability of many
Haworth quarterly journals.
Have you considered publishing under a STANDING ORDER plan, as opposed to
the "subscription" model? Where a subscription is paid in advance, a
standing order is paid when a volume or issue is published and
distributed. Standing orders work great for annuals and unpredictable
publications.
Subscriptions work best when a periodicity is stated and the schedule is
fulfilled within a given time frame (usually 12 months). On the other
hand, a standing order is paid when the item is actually published and
distributed, thus saving a library from paying in advance for a volume
that may not appear for 2 or 3 years (a scary situation when the
legislative auditor comes around.)
I have many Standing Order (SO) titles included in my current subscription
with EBSCO. The SO permits some ambiguity regarding expenditures for the
coming subscripton year. We can track receipt history (and thus actual
publication pattern) and, in combination with the publisher's announced
schedule, we can make a good guess on how many issues/volumes to expect
and set aside the funding for a particular title. The SO allows wiggle
room for the publisher's production schedule, and it also allows the
subscriber some wiggle room for funding. The SO is not a carte blanche --
reasonable adherence to an announced publishing forecast would still be
expected from the publisher, and the SO subscriber is expected to pay for
all issues published.
Thomson/Gale has really cleaned up their act in the last 2 or 3 years.
Of the 100 volumes expected from my SO last year, only 3 were not received
on schedule. They were a week late. That's pretty good. And I knew
exactly how much funding to set aside to cover that publication schedule.
I hated to do it, but I cancelled all but one of my library's Haworth
journal subscriptions back in 2002. We just could not absorb the
unexpected cost of multiple volumes in a single subscription year. I
especially wanted to keep our subscriptions to the library journals, as
most issues were on current topics, readable and very informative. Since
they were published simultaneously as monographs, we decided that we could
order individual titles for the really important ones. That has not
happened in practice.
As I recall, Haworth would announce a 4-issue volume along with its price.
The volume would arrive complete in 1 or 2 physical issues, which in
itself is acceptable. The kicker came when the next volume was announced
only 6 months after the previous volume's announcement. That publishing
pattern is what we call "Two 4-issue volumes per year," and the frequency
is eight no. per year. And the publisher gets paid twice for what we
expected to be a single subscription term.
Many of your journals (at least the ones I read) could easily work into a
standing order plan. Acquisitions and serials librarians are the most
upset at having to pay upfront for issues that don't come for months and
years. This isn't only a matter of inconvenience, personal risk is
involved.
I must justify every expense to the auditors, and we're not supposed to
pay for anything that was not received within the same fiscal year. The
auditors make a small exception for subscriptions which must be paid in
advance, but they still expect all issues to arrive within the first 6
months of the next fiscal year. I personally risk punitive fines and
prison time every time a publisher does not meet an announced publication
schedule. Believe me, Haworth isn't worth it!
But, I still want to get your journals. If Haworth was to offer standing
orders for Reference Librarian, Serials Librarian, Cataloging and
Classification Quarterly, Collection Management, etc., you just might be
pleased at the response.
Just a thought.
Kathy
Kathlyn A. Bowersox E-mail: bowersox@lib.subr.edu
Cataloging/Serials Librarian Office: (225) 771-2863
John B. Cade Library Fax: (225) 771-2866
Southern University
Baton Rouge, LA 70813
