Hi Dan,

Thanks for your comments.  My guess is that your library is a very
different size from ours. Otherwise, I would love to know which
publishers, or service, you are dealing with that in your experience,
access is so quickly restored!

We do have reports of loss of access and/or missing years or issues from
our users, but again, we carry so many titles, that it would not be wise
to rely on reports from users in order to find out if there is a
problem.  And I say this because in our experience resolving loss of
access between vendors, hosting sites, and publishers is hardly ever
easy, or fast.  (Note to publishers here, self-service registration is a
nice touch, especially if we have to re-register a title!)

We are no different from any other library in that the first of the year
is usually when most loss of access due to order problems or hosting
platform changes come up. I believe the latest discussion of problems of
this sort on this list was for the Taylor and Francis titles on their
new Informaworld platform.

But otherwise, for situations when we have to claim access, it can
sometimes take repeatedly emailing to the publisher or having our serial
vendor repeatedly contact them, or repeatedly checking back to see if
the access has been restore.  In the case of the recent Taylor and
Francis example, this process has taken almost two months to resolve for
some of our titles.  Or at least I'm hoping it is finally resolved, as I
see another email from their representative in my inbox!

Thanks!

Angie

Lila (Angie) Ohler
Acquisitions Librarian
University of Oklahoma Libraries
Serials Dept, LL211
401 West Brooks St.
Norman, OK 73019
Phone: (405) 325-2142
Fax: (405) 325-1893
Email:  lohler@ou.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Dan Lester
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 3:42 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] Claiming online issues

  ----- Original message ----------------------------------------

  From: "Ohler, Lila A." <lohler@OU.EDU>

  >But I think it depends on the library.  In my library's case, as in

  >yours, we continue to carry print.  And if we are to continue to
devote

  >labor toward claiming print serials, with an assumption of "need" for

  >those issues on the part of the end user, then I cannot justify not

  >claiming electronic serials.

I think you're doing an "apples and oranges" comparison.  Yes, there can
be problems with publishers messing up your subscription, changing URLs,
and so forth.  However, you can have that type of problem with print
titles, as well. With electronic what you don't have to worry about is
the items getting lost in the mail, run over by a truck, shredded in
some machine along the way, and so forth.  And, of course, in the long
run you don't have to worry about missing issues when you're going to
bind.

>From the experiences I've had, if a title is missing in whole or in
part, it'll get reported very quickly by a user, and you can almost
always have access restored very quickly, too, and certainly much
quicker than a missing issue or volume can be mailed to you, assuming
the publisher even has any to send.  Online missing issues or volumes
are  different enough from the problems of claiming paper issues to make
me seriously doubt whether it is worth the time.

dan

Lord, I never complain, never ask why, but please don't let my dream run
dry

dan@riverofdata.com

Dan Lester, Boise, Idaho, USA