Elsevier Update on RoweCom Situation

["Menefee, Daviess (ELS)" <D.Menefee@elsevier.com>]

*Apologies for the cross-posting*
Company Statement

Elsevier believes that good progress in the takeover by EBSCO of the
RoweCom subscription agent business has been made, and that, as a
consequence, this is an important time to communicate with RoweCom library
customers about our commitment to the process.  Elsevier will, in
anticipation of the completion of the EBSCO takeover, continue the
delivery of Elsevier products during this process to ensure continuity in
library collections.

You may recall that Elsevier, along with several other publishers within
the RoweCom creditors group, announced in January 2003 that customers
would continue to receive "graced" subscriptions, and in Elsevier's case
that all subscriptions to Elsevier journals and services would be graced
through March 2003.  Recently, on 13 March 2003, Elsevier signed the
prepaid order agreement under the US bankruptcy procedure, and is
supporting the similar processes in Europe and Australia.  Customers who
wish further background or information could check the RoweCom advisers'
site at kccllc.net (click the RoweCom button), where you will have
information about the bankruptcy procedures, or check the Yahoo group
site, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rowecomcreditors, for general
information.

One difficulty that Elsevier has is that we do not have adequate
information yet from RoweCom about orders that library customers placed
for 2003 subscriptions.  We are thus working off information we had for
2002 orders. While we do hope to get this information eventually from
RoweCom, you can contact us directly at the e-mail address below to give
us information about your orders or to obtain further information about
our delivery or fulfilment procedures: orderinfo@elsevier.com.

Daviess Menefee
Library Relations