Susan,

My staff and I were also just talking about the lingering problems with transfer titles yesterday.  While notification has improved, there are still problems when timing of the transfer happens after titles are renewed (usually Sep 1 if with a vendor) and paid to the old publisher.  This is further complicated by the fact that the publisher transfer may result in a vendor transfer as well.  The problematic result is in the need for credits and rebillings that often take up to a year to resolve -- reflecting in the budget twice as much as it actually is.

So, for hypothetical example, a Society title (not in a package) that is renewed with EBSCO as a regular subscriptions on Sep 1 first is then announced in December to have moved to Elsevier (a package title) that is with Harrassowitz.

Questions:
1) Did EBSCO pay the Society?  And if they did, shouldn't Society credit that back (or transfer it over to the new publisher) automatically since it turns out it wasn't their title? How does this work on the publishers' end?

2) Would it be best to then renew the Elsevier package as usual including this title, but with the instruction to bill EBSCO (for this year) since they already have the payment and let EBSCO, Society, and Elsevier sort out the publisher transfer payment?

3) Which is better splitting the payments to multiple vendors/publishers in this way, or managing credits and payments with multiple vendors/publishers?

4) Should there be a TRANSFER deadline on publishers end that coincides with vendors usual renewal deadlines?   Would that help?  So if the transfer agreement happens after that deadline the transfer effective date actually wouldn't be until the following year.

Thoughts?  What am I not considering here?
-Angie

Angela Rathmel, Electronic Resources Librarian
University of Kansas Libraries
aroads@ku.edu  | atruthbrarian@gmail.com
785/864-8834 (w) | 785/218-3881 (cell)

St. Silouan the Athonite, on printing this email:
'That green leaf on the tree which you needlessly plucked - it was not wrong, only rather a pity for the little leaf.'

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of SERIALST automatic digest system
Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2014 10:00 PM
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There are 5 messages totaling 1156 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. Manager for Serials Acquisitions & Management, Harvard Library
  2. FW: Titles transferring to new publishers
  3. ALCTS CRS Cataloging Committee Forum
  4. Call for Midwinter reporter(s)
  5. 2014 Brick & Click Call for Proposals

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Date:    Thu, 9 Jan 2014 21:02:07 +0000
From:    "Bartl, Susan" <unlsdb@BUFFALO.EDU>
Subject: FW: Titles transferring to new publishers

Is anyone else noticing more problems than usual with online journals transferring from one publisher to another?

The Transfer Code of Practice has certainly helped improve these situations because we knew ahead of time what titles were moving and where, but coordinating the cut off of access from the prior publisher's site and the new site hasn't gone so well.

In one case, three subscribed titles moved from a small publisher to a large publisher.  We were denied access to full-text for one of the three. The problem was resolved fairly rapidly.  At least the new publisher had the content mounted online.

The latest situation involves a journal moving from the University of California Press (via JSTOR Current Scholarship) to Sage (who had endorsed the Transfer Code of Practice).  We know from past experience that U Calif Press offers no grace period and is not on the Transfer list.  Therefore, it was no surprise to see that we have no access on the JSTOR platform. However, Sage does not yet have any online content for this journal.  (or so well hidden that neither my colleague nor I could find it)

The transfer of two other subscribed titles that moved from the U of Calif Press to another publisher seems to have gone just fine.

It is very disconcerting to have such a gap in access because the receiving publisher has not been able to mount the content before the prior publisher cuts off access.  I cannot recall this ever happening before, and hope it is just a glitch in the universe (as opposed to a polar vortex).

Thanks for listening.

Susan

Susan Davis
Acquisitions Librarian for Continuing Resources University at Buffalo (SUNY)
134 Lockwood Library
Buffalo, NY 14260-2210
716-645-2784
716-645-5955 fax
unlsdb@buffalo.edu<mailto:unlsdb@buffalo.edu>
http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/staff/index.asp?ID=124

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