To all:

I have worked in serials, with vendors- EBSCO and Swets - as a head of
serials and acquisitions and currently as a Research Services
Collection Management Officer at Case Western Reserve University
Kelvin Smith Library. I have written and spoken about vendors and
vendor library relations for many years.

My advice is get presentations from Swets, Harrassowitz, both large
full service vendors, and EBSCO as well as perhaps Basch Subscriptions
and Cox, both competent serials vendors. EBSCO will know you are
examining your options and are looking at price.

Any choice you make should be based on service and electronic
interface issues, as well as price.  What is the best serials vendors
for one is not the same as for another college or university library.

You might find your best option is to stay where you are if you are
happy with the service you are getting, and the price differential is
not great, or your service charge is reduced. But getting more
information will help.  What is the cheapest does not mean it will be
cheap if you lose good service as well.  You need to make an informed
decision

I would be glad to discuss this further with you if you wish to email or fax me.

Good Luck!

Arlene Moore Sievers Hill
Research Services Librarian,
Collection Management Officer

Case Western Reserve University
10900 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland Ohio 44106

Telephone: (216) 368-3328
Fax: (216) 368-3669
Email: Arlene.Sievers@case.edu

On 1/23/12, DAVIS, ROGER <rdavis@kent.edu> wrote:
> I've had the "privilege" of changing serial vendors three times in the last
> 15 years. There are good points and bad for each vendor and it depends
> somewhat on the size of your collection if one will be better for you than
> another. I will say that our last switch to SWETS was the smoothest I've
> seen. It was seamless and we had very few problems with publishers.
>
> Roger
>
> From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
> [mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Coakley, Lynn
> Sent: Monday, January 23, 2012 2:47 PM
> To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
> Subject: [SERIALST] vendor question
>
> hi all:
>
> A colleague at a neighboring college asked me for information about
> periodicals vendors besides Ebsco of which they are a customer.  Apparently
> an audit turned up the fact that there are other vendors that are cheaper.
> Personally, I think the agony of getting titles transferred from one vendor
> to another is not worth the lesser cost, but that's my opinion.
>
> I told her I would ask this list for ideas of a different periodicals vendor
> that you love (or that you hate), I'd love to have that info.
>
> Thanks
>
> Lynn
>
> --
> Lynn Coakley
> Coordinator of Technical Services
> Library
> Springfield Technical Community College
> One Armory Sq.
> Springfield, MA  01102
> 413.755.4565
> fax 413.755.6315
>
>