---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 1995 13:02:33 -0400
From: Steve Murden <SMURDEN@GEMS.VCU.EDU>
Subject: Gordon and Breach (again)

I have several questions relating to how Gordon and Breach is doing
business, specially in the States.  I am very interested in knowing
if anyone else has any clarifying information, since contacting
them is so difficult.

We have the following address in the US, taken from their invoices:
     International Publishers Distributor Pte., Ltd.
     P. O. Box 27542
     Newwark,  NJ  07101-8742
Directory assistance has no listing for a phone number, but we
would like to have a local contact number.  I am hard-pressed to
justify the expense of trans-Atlantic calls, or even faxes.  Can
anybody help?

When G&B stopped dealing with Faxon (our contracted periodicals
vendor), we transferred all their titles to Direct.  They later
moved the business to IPD (as I recall).  For invoices above a
certain amount, we are required, by law, to deal only with
contracted vendors.  If a company does not work through vendors, we
have to obtain a Sole Source letter from them, stating that they
are the exclusive source for certain items, and that letter must
accompany every invoice that we process from them.  (Yes, it's
complicated, but they are the rules that we have to work under.)
G&B has recently informed us, via fax, that they _will_ deal with
vendors.  I have not yet called our Faxon rep. to see if their
working relationship with G&B has changed; I thought that I would
begin by lumping all of my questions in one posting here first.  If
anyone has any current information in that regard, I would love to
hear about it.

My final huge concern is with the following note that appears on
several of their invoices this year:

     The Subscription price includes an additional 10% charge for
     a CD-ROM that will include all of the material contained in
     the printed Journal and may include visual enhancements
     such as video images and other material.

We do not _want_ the CDs, and do not want to pay for them.  We
generally exercise the option of crossing items off of invoices and
paying only for what we specifically request, but are reluctant to
do that in this case.  We could find ourselves out 90% of the
invoice amount, but with no subscription to show for it.  Has
anyone had any conversations about this issue with genuine G&B
staff?  Is this an optional or a required _enhancement_?

I continue to advocate with our Collection Management librarians
for the cancellation of all G&B titles, and have done so for
several years now.  Unfortunately, they are more concerned with the
integrity of the research collection than they are with the
difficulties that we face in Acquisitions.  (And before anybody
flames me, that is not a slam; I would expect nothing less from
them.)

I almost hate to start another Gordon and Breach thread on this
list, but I suspect that we are not the only library dealing with
these problems/issues.  If anyone has any information that would
help to enlighten me, they can either post it to the List or send
it directly to me.  If the latter includes salient comments that
might be of general interest, I will gladly repost a synposis of
any private messages I receive.

Thanks.

Steve Murden
Virginia Commonwealth University
smurden@gems.vcu.edu