Good grief!  No, this hasn't happened to us . . . (yet).

Although I recall going a couple of rounds with some magazine publishers, who seemed to think they were selling issues instead of subscriptions.  Ergo, we paid for, say Jan to Dec, and got no more issues after October because they had already sent us 12 issues, which was what they thought they were contracted for.  I'm not sure of titles - am thinking though, that one was Harvard Business Review?  And of course, there's the infamous Sports Illustrated subs, which does or does not include the swimsuit issue, depending upon whom one asks.

Jeanette L. Skwor
Cofrin Library, Serials Dept.
UW-Green Bay
2420 Nicolet Drive
Green Bay, WI 54311

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Charles L. King
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 4:24 PM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] Wall Street Journal mid-year price changes

For at least 3 years running, the Wall Street Journal (subscribe to via
EBSCO) has stopped delivery to us and the other branches.  The reason given,
when we call to find out where our issues are, is that they had unforeseen
costs so they recalculated the cost of the subscription and cut them short.
I don't know if this is something they do only to institutions, or if they
do this to individual subscribers as well, but it strikes me as a  way to
alienate customers.

Our EBSCO rep was informed by the WSJ that letters were sent to all their
subscribers (nobody at any of the 30 subscribing branches has seen one)
informing subscribers of the change in the subscription period.

Mainly I am curious if anyone on the mainland is being treated this way, but
I am also curious if anyone can explain this (to me) contract breaking.
I've had it explained to me that our academic journals may have a price
change, as our subscription period may not fit with their publishing year,
so we are paying for the remaining part of one publishing year, and the
beginning part of another publishing year where the price may have changed.
But our WSJ subscriptions are January through December, which seems to be a
standard subscription period.

Charles L. King
Serials Librarian
Hawaii State Library
478 South King Street
Honolulu, HI 96813-2994
http://www.hspls.org/serials/serials.html