Mary--
Due to the vagaries of federal funding at the beginning of the fiscal
year, I have been considering asking WIPG to tell me what they will
publish during the first quarter. I will then order those titles first.
If my agency is ever under a continuing resolution (and I think there have
only been two times in the past 15 years that we haven't been) there is no
way I can get enough funds to cover everything. This was bad enough
before West became WIPG and I received 4 months material at one time.
Next year it will be as bad as last year when we returned from furlough
and ordered our Fiscal Year materials in February. We received a skid of
updates in April, and it was a nightmare.
We feds are precluded by the Anti-Deficiency (or some such) Act from using
standing orders that cross fiscal years.
Any thoughts or suggestions or words of wisdom for me?
-Kay Collins, Head Librarian, U.S. Railroad Retirement Board, Chicago
On Tue, 1 Apr 1997, Mary Brandt Jensen wrote:
> Has anyone considered the idea of fixed term standing orders? I know
> we cannot afford to put many of the titles on true standing order
> especially given the fact that West often does not seem to have the option
> of the kind of basic upkeep service that appeared to be anticipated by
> the FTC Guidelines (ever try canceling the interim bound volumes of the
> SCT Reporter which surely do not meet the definition of basic upkeep
> service? ). What I've been thinking about is once a year reviewing my
> West titles and giving West a standing order to the ones I think I can pay
> for (after defining what I mean by that) but telling West that the
> standing order is good for only one year. That after that, they have to
> get a signed renewal from us for it to be valid. That way, I would review
> the whole West IG account once a year like I do for MB, our Hein journal
> list, RIA, CCH, and like I used to do for LCP and CBC.
>
> Does this sound like a reasonable requested option? Part of the reason I
> ask is that I'm playing around with the idea of writing an article on
> minimum ordering/invoicing options needed to meet the basic customer
> service needs of law libraries/law firms/subscribers to legal
> publications. Maybe if we presented the publishers with a list of the
> minimum options that the Association considered were necessary to provide
> basic customer service levels we might get somewhere.
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