Yes, every single time I try to pay them there is a protracted problem
lasting approximately 3-6 months.  I have found helpful people there,
but always people who are "just filling in."  CDS apparently lost half
of their staff at some point in the last several years (so I've been
told), and they are chronically understaffed.  Our Cataloger's Desktop
subscription expired at the end of May, but to date no on has contacted
me to renew it.  Last year, when I tried to be proactive and renew it on
my own without waiting for their renewal message, it took six months to
sort out the payment and have it applied correctly.

For me, this was so much easier when these two products were CD-ROMS and
I could order them from an outside vendor. Once LC went online (a good
thing) and insisted that we order directly from CDS (not such a good
thing), renewal and payment have been huge problems.

Good luck to us all,

Kim

_________________________________________________
Kim Maxwell
Serials Acquisitions Librarian
Associate Head, Acquisitions & Licensing Services
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT Libraries, Room 14E-210
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
phone: 1-617-253-7028
fax:   1-617-253-2464
email: kmaxwell@mit.edu

----- Original Message -----
*From:* Connie Foster <connie.foster@WKU.EDU>
*To:* SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
*Sent:* 06/13/2007 9:53:34 AM -0400
*Subject:* [SERIALST] CDS contact at Library of Congress

> does anyone have a specific, helpful person at the Cataloging
> Distribution Service whom I could contact about Classification Web and
> an account problem?
> Has anyone else had problems with CDS receiving payments for products?
> Thanks.
> Connie Foster
>