This is not only great, it's also funny as hell. Thanks, Julie for posting this. I am also going to a focus group (next week). I'll be sure to share these thoughts as well. Eleanor Truex Medical Librarian Saint Joseph Hospital Chicago, IL -----Original Message----- From: Medical Libraries Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Marks, Lisa A Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 4:39 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Journal management issues - summary (pretty long!) This is a great summary Julie! Thanks for posting it... Lisa Lisa Marks, MLS, AHIP Manager, Library Services Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center 501 S. Buena Vista St. Burbank, CA 91505 818-847-3822 Health Science Library 818-748-4922 Hench Cancer Library [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: Medical Libraries Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Julie Stielstra Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2010 1:35 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Journal management issues - summary (pretty long!) Boy, did I hear from you! This is a very condensed, paraphrased summary, and I'm going to this focus group tomorrow loaded for bear. (1) PRICING! *What we hate (aside from how painfully expensive everything is)*: * Lack of transparency * We HATE bundling titles: YOUR choice of 100 titles costs $10,000; OUR choice of 10 titles costs $10,000 a la carte. No logic, no fairness, just greed. * Price increases at random times in the year requiring supplemental invoices * Price increases of 7 - 15% when CPI is more like 3%. This is especially annoying for e-content without paper, printing, mailing, etc. * Incomprehensible and secret pricing methods for institutions: users, tiers, bed sizes, clinical staff, who knows what all *What we want*: * Prices set 3Q calendar year for the following year so we can plan budgets, pay bill and not get hit with extra charges. No other business retroactively charges extra after I've bought their product. * Title by title pricing: this journal is this much, period, with discounts for X number of titles purchased (2) MARKETING * Don't be mass mailing administrators, CEOs, etc. Contact the LIBRARIAN. * Misleading info about content: don't say "we have 800 titles in full text" when half of them are partial non-current runs, etc. Who needs the Australasian Journal of Veterinary Cosmetic Dentistry 1983-1985 in our bundle? * We are trying to make access to our users simple and seamless. They (and we) do not want to have to learn eight different platforms to access eight different titles. STOP the monopolistic stuff and license to aggregators (Ovid, ProQuest, etc.). (3) PRINT VS ONLINE *What we hate*: * Forcing purchase of print + online when all we want is online. * Mixing up the content between print and online so that some is only accessible in one form or another. ALL print content should be online! * We HATE "epub ahead of print," and we especially HATE it when some online platforms include these and others don't. *What we want*: * Choice of print only, online only, or both. * All print content is accessible online to all users. * All online content is accessible regardless of platform or vendor. (4) ONLINE ACCESS ISSUES *What we hate*: * Not being able to select our own usernames / passwords * Not being able to select IP authentication vs UNP * Vagaries of activating online subscriptions - we do it, our agent does it, you do it, and then you don't let us know. Excessively complicated setups, multiple passwords, etc. * Calendar year subscriptions that are cut off on Dec. 1, regardless of whether we've paid you or not for the next year, and having to reactivate from scratch every year. * Not having user stats * Erratic content: lack of supplements, conference proceedings, etc. If it's in the print subscription, it should be online too! * Pulling your content from aggregators with no discussion and little notice. "Here today and gone tomorrow" is NOT good customer service. *What we want*: * Our choice of IP and/or password access; links with Athens / Shibboleth * We order your journal; YOU set up the access for us. We'll send you whatever info you need. * Quit the "if you don't buy directly from us and use our crappy platform, you can't have it online AT ALL." McGraw / LWW, are you LISTENING?? (5) ARCHIVAL ACCESS *What we hate*: Paying for a subscription for X years, have to cancel for budget reasons, and thus losing ALL the content we paid for. *What we want*: We pay for it, it's ours. We maintain access to it as long as we want. Period. (6) INTERLIBRARY LOANS / FAIR USE *What we hate*: * "No ILLs allowed" * Prohibiting ILL of native PDFs. Let's face it, this is absurd. Patrons will not stand for print copies any more. One way or another, they're going to end up with a PDF; the only question is how many pages of paper and hours of time are wasted in the process. *What we want*: To provide ILLs within Fair Use / CONTU guidelines, emailing PDFs to partners and patrons with all usual copyright warnings prominently displayed. We're good at this, we're conscientious about this. (6) MISCELLANEOUS Minimize supplements. Don't change prices, titles, or size of journals except on January 1. We hate your voicemail systems. All of them. Standardize placement of data like volume and issue numbers, dates, ISSN numbers or barcodes on the physical issues. Consistent, prompt usage statistics for online journals. I will report on the meeting next week! :-) -- Julie Stielstra, MLS Manager, Knowledge Resource Library Central DuPage Hospital 25 N Winfield Rd Winfield, IL 60190 phone 630-933-4536 fax 630-933-4530 email jstielstra [ at ] gmail.com "Never...be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices...and I can always be hopeful of you." -- Betsy Trotwood to David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)