---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 17:29:15 CST
From: E. Gaele Gillespie <GGILLESP%UKANVM.bitnet@uvmvm.uvm.edu>
Subject: Re: Year End Dups/Claims (Julie Bixby) (Joe Edelen)

Re: In response to Joe Edelen's comments 12/29/94 about claiming directly to
the publishers rather than through vendors:

One of the strengths of a seasoned serials vendor is the publisher relations
they have built up over time and with experience.  This is one of the reasons
to use particular serials vendors and one of the variables to use when measur-
ing their effectiveness.  Another of the reasons to use serials vendors is to
tap into their publisher relations expertise, as in the area of claiming.
The claims module of our serials system is set up to claim to the source of
record for each title, depending upon whether that source is a publisher or a
vendor.  Therefore, we do set up address records for certain publishers.
These records also contain the publishers' phone numbers, fax numbers, and
e-mail addresses, and we do use them whenever a particularly dire situation
arises with a title (or several titles from one publisher), or when our
vendor(s) replies are too consistently unsatisfactory.  We do not hesitate to
deal directly with the publisher whenever situations demand it. If a vendor
gets "miffed" because we've gone directly to the publisher (and some have),
we tell them we're doing it because we need the issues or information they,
as our vendor, hasn't supplied. When this happens, we take our vendor to task
and ask them to explain to us precisely *why* it was so difficult for them to
supply the information we obtained directly from the publisher, and how we
expect for them to perform for us in future.  (Occasionally we put vendors on
hiatus in the area of new orders until their performance consistently improves)
In other cases, we find out that a publisher simply does not like to deal with
vendors (or a particular vendor), and sometimes we're even fortunate enough to
find out the reason(s) *why*.  In such cases, we explain to the publisher
why we, and other libraries, prefer to use a vendor.  However, I would not
choose to deal directly with the publisher on a routine basis for all of our
titles/claims all of the time. Many of the titles we subscribe to are published
overseas, and except in special circumstances, claiming directly to those
publishers on a continuing basis, rather than going through our vendors, would
not be cost effective for us at this time, whether those costs are direct
(phone, fax, postage) or indirect (staff time, etc.)  One last point: There are
some publishers that we have found to be so difficult to deal with that we do
not *care* to deal with them directly (and believe me, our vendors do us a
great service in these cases).  I much prefer to go the route of conferring
seriously with a vendor should their performance with our claims (or any other
area of responsibility to us as a client) not measure up to our expectations.

E. Gaele Gillespie / Serials Librarian / University of Kansas Libraries