Thank you all who responded to my questions. Please see the answers below: We renew most of our packages direct with the publishers. I've been quite happy with the response to any problems that I have, and I often find it easier to work with the publishers directly. As you mention below, we were having to verify the title lists directly anyway, then hand it off to our vendor for them to invoice us and hit us with a service charge. Several of our publishers are invoicing us with a single line invoice, instead of a title line invoice. We have a spreadsheet of titles and prices in most cases to show where that came from, unless we have access to everything for that price, in which case we stop worrying about a title list. For the ones that still do invoice us at the title level, we use a macro to load the invoice lines into our ILS. Giving up EDI invoicing, if you are using it, will be another consideration in moving direct. We just happened to have a replacement when we did it. ************************************************************************ 1. If you've done this, have you found it more effective/efficient dealing directly with publishers? A: In some cases, yes, generally when it is a consortial offer. 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? A: I suspect that more often, publishers prefer not to deal with agencies. We tend to go with consortial offers when possible. We also go online only for most packages with few exceptions. 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? A: I have not encountered this. We get a renewal once a year for the big packages. Are there any other questions or issues you encountered? A: Having a good customer rep is key. We haven't had many problems with packages, I'm happy to say. ************************************************************************ If you remove some of your publisher packages from the subscription agency, you may reduce the amount of your invoice to a point where the service charge on your remaining subscriptions may increase. Also, you may lose an agency discount on the journal titles and pay the full price through the publisher. If you take advantage of any early renewal / early payment discounts by your subscription agency(s), this will also be reduced. We have 2 'consortia package' deals. One 'consortia package' has the titles spread over 4 of our subscription agents. Initially there was some confusion, but the agents now send us a separate invoice for these titles. The consortia headquarters that deals with the publisher sends us a list of the titles with agents which is easily verified and any titles are added, or removed. If we wished, we could move all of the titles to one agent and redistribute other titles to help even out the accounts and limit the effects of another possible (Faxon) debacle. However our current set up show that we try to treat every agent fairly. With the other package, it was such a mess at the renewal of the first year, that it was decided to go directly to the publisher for our yearly renewals. This did have an effect on our service fee from some of the subscription agents. A VERY late acceptance of the terms of this publishers' package and signing of the contract, the conversion from Print to E only on this package combined, payment for print already having occured, with trying get to refund print payments from the publisher's various publishing centers and then billing at E rates, was so convoluted and is still not untangled satisifactorily that, well ... Look at the contracts to see if it is financially advantageous to the library, and worth a little extra effort on your part. For me, that is part of "And other duties as assigned" and I have felt the effort is worth it to give the director another example for saying "we are doing all that we can to get the most out of our budget . ************************************************************************ We use both vendors and direct. We are direct with one of our major publishers who does not like to work with vendors, and they do not provide EDI Invoicing. As a consequence we spend a lot of time with manual entry and reconciling list. It is time that I would prefer we spend on other endeavors. I looked at going through one of our two vendors (Harrassowitz and Ebsco), but we just can't afford it right now. One of our major benefits of working with vendors is the electronic invoicing and reporting capabilities that vendors provide. Also as titles move to different publishers, our vendors' services have been very beneficial in that they chase these changes. Often with these changes, payment gets 'lost.' Our vendor is great about working with the publisher to prove payment. When you look at moving away from a vendor and work direct with the publisher, take into account the services that you would lose. I have no easy answer in regards to reconciling title list. We have one major publisher (different than the one mentioned above) that we get through a consortium, and it is a nightmare. Our consortium deals are very time consuming. Sometimes I wonder if the price break is worth the extra man hours they require. I would be interested in hearing how others feel about this issue. *********************************************************************** We do get the AMA journals directly, they are no problem. I also got Haworth Press direct, but they got bought out, so I am now getting them through my journal vendor. I did get the Elsevier health titles direct, but every time there was a change with them it caused a problem, so I changed them to my journal vendor... *********************************************************************** We ordered our Haworth titles direct for several years. It was a cost saving measure. With that publisher it was a lot of work as they were frequently late and claiming was not easy as they did not respond. They also sent out lots of renewals for every title. I had to check each one. We went with EBSCO on this one. I would consider it to save money if the publisher had an easy claim setup and if the journals were usually on time. Henriette ___________________________________ Henriette Ilyes Library Information Systems Administrator RAND Library Acquisitions 310-393-0411 ext. 7909 Henriette_Ilyes@rand.org -----Original Message----- From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Ilyes, Henriette Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 4:17 PM To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: [SERIALST] Subscription package renewals - agency vs. direct? 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 ________________________________________________________________________ __ This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.
