Hello,

We are in the process of renewing our subscriptions through our
subscription agent, and I was wondering if any of you out there have
ever tried to order or renew your major journal packages directly with
the publishers (e.g. Springer, Sage, Elsevier, etc) rather than through
your subscription agent.

Even though we subscribe through an agency, some publishers require us
to verify the subscriptions we receive through packages directly.  We
are also part of a consortium, so if lists (sometimes long lists) need
to be checked, I spend numerous hours on trying to figure out whose list
is accurate: publisher, consortium, the agent's, or our own records.

I'd like to know the following:

1. If you've done this, have you found it more effective/efficient
dealing directly with publishers?
2. Have you found that publishers respond to claims, customer service
questions, etc. in a timely manner? Have you found that they would
rather deal with the subscription agency?
3. Do you feel overwhelmed when dealing with publisher title lists
directly throughout the year instead of the "big" renewals once or twice
a year?

Are there any other questions or issues you encountered?

Thank you.

Henriette Ilyes
___________________________________
Henriette Ilyes
Library Information Systems Administrator
RAND Library Acquisitions
(310)393-0411 ext. 7909
(310)451-7029 (fax)
Henriette_Ilyes@rand.org

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