Hello All: These are my suggestions and advices to my young colleagues on the above mentioned matter. First, handling journal vendors should be seen as a strategy which will depend on many factors -- the volume of your transaction with a vendor (in terms of money), how reputed the vendor is, how big the vendor is -- to name a few. Second, for this ongoing discourse, I would suggest that you separate two issues - (i) what should be done in future (ii) what can be done for those vendors who have taken your order and are not responding. Again I would reiterate that there cannot be anything full-proof. You have to weigh the pros and cons as applicable to your situation and take the best aailable option. What should be done in the future for selecting a journal vendor who can be trusted? 1. There is no guarantee that a selected vendor can be trusted always but established vendors who are working with large and many libraries can be probably a safe bet. 2. One should not encourage a vendor who is trying to open a business in this line or who is in this business for a short time. I am sure that many vendors will question on how they can survive if such a step is taken. My answer is quite brute - I do not care. My first and only priority is that my institute must receive for whatever they pay and I should be technically on right side with respect to audit team. 3. Never select a vendor who is not located in your city (difficult to exercise this option for many newly opened institutes who are not located in major cities. My suggestion would be to go with established vendors even if that requires paying them some handling charges) 4. If the vendor who is not locatd in your city gives you a mobile number, also insist on a landline number and make a verification by calling on that number. 4. You should not only insist that the vendor would pay first to the publisher but they must also show that a letter was issued to the publisher saying clearly that the the subscription was for your institute. You should also demand for the subscription number issued by the publisher (you can do this if you are releasing the order well in time) should be given to you. As soon as you get that number, write to the publisher immediately claiming that no cancellation of that order would be done unless supported by an authorization letter signed by you. 5. If you are handling a transaction for tune say Rs 10 - 15 lakhs or more with a vendor, you can demand that 10% of the billed value must be deposited with you in the form of bank deposit and you would release that after satisfactory recovery of issues. 6. It is always good to execute a bond as suggested by Ms. Banerjee. But I think such an agreement is kind of paper tiger. If you cannot recover an amount of say Rs 30,000/ or so from a vendor, will your institute really go for a legal proceeding which would be much costlier? I have doubt. Such agreements are more kind of safeguard for you to show the audit that you have taken all possible steps to ensure that the security of the money paid by the institute was taken. 7. Switch over to e-version as much as possible without any paper version. 8. Never never stop sending timely reminders to the vendors for issues that are not received. What should be done for those vendors who have taken your money and have ben silent regarding missing issues? Most probably not much. The best act will be to request your Director to write a letter to the Directors of all other institues, describing the misdeed of the vendor and requesting to consider to not to handle any business with that vendor. Make sure that you send a copy of that letter to that vendor along with a list of the institutes where that Director-signed letter has gone. Best wishes, Swati Bhattacharyya -------------------------------------------------- Librarian Indian Institute of Management Joka Diamond Harbor Road Calcutta - 700104 Phone: 091-33-24678300 Extn: 416 FAX: 091-33-2467-8062 Email: swati @iimcal.ac.in --------------------------------------------------
Sir,
This is in connection with the above issue. I observe that many librarians have expressed helplessness concerning the agencies which fail to deliver the issues in spite of being paid the subscription in advance. One way to overcome this problem is to sign an agreement on 100 rupee stamp paper beforehand which would contain the terms and conditions of the transaction. The agreement can include a clause about the non-receipt of issues and the time frame within which the copies are to be received as well as refund of the subscription amount in case the missing issues are not available after specified date. The agreement should further specify that in case of dispute, the matter will be resolved legally in whichever state the library is located. This agreement will be jointly signed by the librarian (on behalf of the library) and the vendor. The vendor should also produce a witness who would sign the agreement in addition to him. The agreement safeguards the interests of the l! ibrary since it's a legal document.
Regards, Bharati Banerjee Assistant Chief Librarian Reserve Bank of India
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