---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 08:40:24 -0600
From: Joe Edelen, University of South Dakota <JEDELEN@CHARLIE.USD.EDU>
Subject: Re: Year End Dups/Claims (Julie Bixby)

A couple of years ago we started a policy of getting a phone # and calling a
publisher direct for a missing issue (this was after an unnamed vendor
continued to give us poor performance for claims).  We found in almost every
case several things: (1) the publisher claimed they had no record of ever
receiving the claim -- and who knows if they did or did not; and (2) almost
without exception they agreed to send it to us asap.  What we ended up finding
out was that the few $$ we spent on long distance calls was more than offset by
the lessened amount of staff labor that we had to expend to do claim
2,3,4,5,.......

After all that and dealing with the publisher we thought we had ironed out a
few details where their claiming process would again, as per our contract, take
care of all this.  Well, low and behold one day we decided to find out how many
claims we had out there that we had claimed 4 times.  The number was
staggering.  We contacted them and they agreed to get on it.  However, since
most of the claims were over the claim time limit now they think they want to
have us pay $$ for the issues.  Needless to say, that is not going to happen
and we may go back to our old ways and another vendor if need be, although it
sounds like they all do similar things.

All in all I am inclined to agree that long run the cheapest thing to do may be
to get the number and make the initial call ourselves (by the way, we enter the
number into out database so that it is there next time).  I believe that our
best course is to do it ourselves and consider it a cost of doing business.

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**  Joe Edelen                          I.D. Weeks Library                 **
**  Bibliographic Control Librarian     University of South Dakota         **
**  605-677-6082                        414 East Clark Street              **
**  605-677-5488 (fax)                  Vermillion, SD  57069-2390         **
**  Internet: JEDELEN@CHARLIE.USD.EDU                                      **
**                                                                         **
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**  The views herein expressed are mine alone and not necessarily those    **
**  of my institution.                                                     **
**                                                                         **
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