Re: Perennial renewal problems with ASCE journals

["V. Rani Sinha" <sinhav@mail.lafayette.edu>]

Yes, this problem resonates with me, too.  At the end of 2002 we decided
to move to the e-journals package after years of having print
subscriptions via Ebsco.  We decided to purchase the online package
directly from ASCE.  I am not sure why, but because we went from being a
brokered customer to a direct customer, we fell through the cracks.  It
has taken months to establish our request for access, and we are still
awaiting actual access.  Now it appears to be in the hands of "a vendor",
but I am not sure who this would be, if not ASCE.

There has been one helpful person at ASCE, Brooke Moore, who was good
enough to deduct the cost of the loss of one quarter of access from our
invoice.

But I am still waiting to be able to inform faculty that all systems are
go.

It is very dismaying, because the journals are well-written and the price
can't be beat.  But there is something dysfunctional about the management
of e-journal services! 
Vaswati R. Sinha (Ms.)                          ph : (610) 330-5636
Serials & Acquisitions Librarian                        e-mail :
sinhav@lafayette.edu
Skillman Library
Lafayette College
710 Sullivan Road
Easton, PA  18042-1797
__


At 02:14 PM 4/23/2003 -0400, you wrote:
> Dear list members,
>
> I would be interested to know if we are alone in our experiences with ASCE
> online journals. For the third time after 2001 and 2002, we have lost
> online access to our package of ASCE journals. Online Service has been
> interrupted since April 1, 2003. This time, we received an early warning
> on March 12 (ASCE Online subscription alert) that our subscriptions had
> not been renewed. On receipt of this alert, our library, in cooperation
> with our subscription agency, writing in parallel, immediately provided
> the publisher with all details of our subscription and payment, including
> a copy of the processed check which was faxed in mid March. Payment had
> already been made in mid November 2002, and the cheque had been cashed in
> early December. We urged the publisher to ensure that online access to our
> subscriptions would continue uninterrupted.
>
> If there is a perennial mystery that baffles acquisition librarians it is
> that every year again payments made through agencies don't show up in
> publisher's records. No amount of grace period seems to help, it's only
> effect being that problems show up later in the year. This time at least
> we received an early warning, and we were optimistic enough to assume that
> our immediate reaction could avoid interruption of online service for our
> patrons on campus. Alas, ASCE did not bother to follow up our e-mail
> exchange, and in the second week of April, we were alerted by one of our
> patrons that online access had been cut off. We claimed again and asked to
> restore online access immediately. No response so far! We are now
> contemplating to ask for some refund of our subscription money if online
> access is withheld any further.
>
> Have other libraries had similar experiences?
>
> Bernd-Christoph Kaemper, Stuttgart University Library
>
> --
> Bernd-Christoph Kaemper, Dipl.-Physiker, Bibl.-Rat
> Fachreferent f�r Physik und Koordination elektronischer Ressourcen
> Universit�tsbibliothek Stuttgart, Postfach 104941, 70043 Stuttgart
> Tel +49 711 685-4780, Fax +49 711 685-3502, kaemper@ub.uni-stuttgart.de