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Considering a Subscription Agent? Here are Some Questions to Ask When You Interview Prospective Providers

By Holly Bussey, MLS

We all know that time is money. Vendors can be partners in making work easier. One area to consider is how e-journals and subscriptions are handled within your organization and libraries. Should you work with publishers directly? Use a vendor? Negotiate on your own?

This article provides a list of questions librarians should ask content providers when determining whether to place subscription orders with a publisher directly. By asking these questions, you’ll be better informed to make purchasing decisions based on the needs of your organization, your staff size and workload, and any budget constraints you may be facing.

While there are many considerations, including service, easing staff time, etc., price is obviously a key factor in how you handle the ordering of  periodicals. In many cases, subscription agents can reduce your organization’s overall subscription spend—when compared to ordering direct through a publisher—by offering line-item cost savings and reducing the workload for those who manage subscriptions.

Many publishers offer financial incentives to purchase subscriptions direct. Though price should be considered, it’s important to note that a 2 percent to 5 percent price cut can cost more if the work your subscription agent could have handled ends up falling on your organization.

The following questions will help you properly assess the value of subscription management tasks an agent can perform on your behalf.

Who will maintain data on available subscription offerings?

Subscription agents are only as effective as their subscription information is accurate. The best agents ensure they have the most up-to-date subscription information available for publications worldwide. Agents should maintain information on price fluctuations, changes in publication schedules, e-journal availability, and other bibliographic information.

Through their relationships with publishers worldwide, agents are constantly receiving updates to ordering and pricing information, which should be passed along to your organization. By consulting this information, you’re better informed to make the most appropriate purchasing decisions.

Who will provide rapid entry, payment, registration, and activation of new subscription orders?

Handling all subscription orders through an agent eliminates the need for individual orders and payments to multiple content providers, reducing staff  workload by consolidating all orders and payments through one provider. Agents keep track of order and renewal due dates, so orders handled through  agents are processed and paid on time, removing that burden from your staff. In most cases, agents can also handle any registration and activation requirements directly with content providers, ensuring prompt access for new orders, and improving subscription usage and continuity of information resource access.

To further simplify the purchasing process, some agents have developed specialized purchasing options for corporations. These Web-based catalogs provide online, “shopping cart” purchasing, are compatible with e-procurement applications, and accommodate the acquisition of newspaper, magazine, journal, e-journal, e-journal and e-book package subscriptions, and sometimes books.

Customizable purchasing procedures and a built-in approval process allow purchases from various departments to be approved and budgeted appropriately to the needs of your organization.

What types of orders are being processed?

Whom are the orders for? Librarians are responsible for their own collection but in many cases must coordinate magazines received by individuals in an organization. In other cases, while librarians may not be responsible directly for “end user” subscriptions, they are part of a cost-control committee team that can include the IT department, purchasing, procurement, office services, and others.

Subscription agents now offer several options to handle various scenarios within an organization as well as provide support services to assist information flow.

Who verifies my invoice prior to billing?

Invoices can contain inaccuracies that, if unaddressed, can adversely affect the receipt of and payment for your subscriptions. Having someone on your staff verify every subscription invoice can be time consuming, especially when verification entails calling every publisher with which you do business.

Agents verify publisher invoices prior to billing. Verification occurs both in the initial negotiation phase and at each renewal. Invoices are compared to detailed order history records, which some agents maintain for up to 10 years. By the time your organization receives an invoice, your agent has verified it, and any discrepancies with publishers have already been resolved.

Will I have title-level detail on my invoices?

Invoices from publishers often lack title level detail, requiring staff in your organization to perform additional legwork to discover pertinent information for each subscription. Because agents receive much of this information from the publisher, they are able to provide detailed invoices with current  bibliographic information for all orders they process on your behalf. Among the types of information that can be provided are codes for frequency of publication, a description of the publishing schedule, notice of discontinuation and name changes, information about publisher rules on claims and cancellations, and reports on delayed publications.

With title-level invoice detail, your organization is better able to control your subscription collection by updating records, making claims, and monitoring the publishing status of your subscriptions. When electronic subscriptions are purchased through a package model, you can use information on the invoice to maintain a record of titles that are within a package. You can also identify titles “paid for” within a package as opposed to titles that are “additional access” because of special purchasing arrangements. In addition, you can use fund/charge codes to allocate subscription costs to various departments or budgets.

Will I automatically receive a timely invoice well in advance of the end of my fiscal year without having to request it?

Agents are familiar with your institution’s billing cycle and understand the importance of timely invoicing. In cases where agents receive pricing early from publishers, they can often provide a detailed invoice within a few days. If publisher pricing is delayed, agents can generate an estimated invoice that will allow you to allot appropriate funds.

By following up regularly with publishers, agents ensure invoices are received in a timely fashion, thus removing that burden from your organization. Agents can also provide historical pricing information that can aid in budgeting funds for the new subscription year. Don’t be afraid to ask what else an agent can provide you to help determine and project costs.

How are my orders processed? Will I have pre-financing for prepaid orders? What types of options are available?

Some agents can provide subscription ordering through the agent’s local office assigned to your account. Some agents also offer Web-based catalogs that offer “Amazon-like” ordering in a business-to-business environment that is compatible with e-procurement systems. This latter service may be of interest to some other departments in addition to the library, depending on the nature of the ordering process.

Both services can also provide detailed management reports in numerous formats. These reports are designed to help maintain control over orders, duplications, renewals, and annual costs. They can track annual corporate expenditures by department or individual, list all publications ordered within an organization and indicate who is ordering which titles.

Regardless of how you choose to place your orders, agents work to make sure they are processed in a timely and efficient manner. Some agents also offer pre-financing for prepaid orders, accept credit cards, purchasing cards, and ghost cards for payment. Ask how the agent pays for subscriptions. Do they pay on your behalf, or wait until you’ve paid the agent before the order is processed and released? Check out the financial soundness of the agents you are considering.

Who maintains historical order records for all items ordered in all formats and for how long? Agents maintain order history records, allowing you to review your subscription purchases and any changes to them from year to year. These records are also helpful when negotiating licenses and evaluating subscriptions for renewal. Since many publishers base pricing on historical subscription lists, order history records help ensure you are charged accurately for your purchases. Agents are well positioned to verify the accuracy of your list.

Who handles renewals, cancellations, and changes?

Processing subscription renewals, cancellations, and changes often requires the efforts of a full-time employee, especially for large organizations that order many subscriptions for various departments. Therefore, one of the benefits of using a subscription agent is letting your agent handle all print and electronic subscription renewals, cancellations, and changes on behalf of your organization. Working with a subscription agent streamlines the renewal process by supplying you with a single contact for all renewals, changes, etc.

After reviewing your renewal and providing authorization, agents handle all aspects of that renewal on your behalf with every publisher with which you do  business. Agents can also process cancellations for titles you wish to discontinue and will alert you to any publisher restrictions that apply to  cancellations, such as non-cancellable titles. This prevents you from inadvertently canceling a non-cancellable title and losing access to content.

As license restrictions become more complex and varied per publisher, having someone monitor license agreements on your behalf is an increasing benefit. Should you move, change floors, or, in the case of individual end-user orders, have to arrange for that individual’s subscription orders, your agent can handle these issues and more at a fraction of the cost your organization might otherwise pay.

Can I see who is ordering which titles and review all information on that order?

Managing subscriptions has become more complex as organizations have increased their number of electronic subscriptions orders. As a result, the need for more efficient subscription management tools has become increasingly important.

In response to this need, many agents now offer customized subscription management reports that give organizations an overview of their total  subscription purchases for both electronic and print titles. These reports can provide a summary of publications on order as well as the format availability of journals (print, print plus online, online only, etc.).

Some electronic journal subscriptions require additional access and registration steps before content is available to end users. Agents can provide reports with information about publishers’ access policies, as well as lists of all electronic titles ordered through your agent. These reports identify titles requiring registration, group titles by publisher for site-by-site registration, identify those titles where your agent has completed the registration process as well as titles requiring annual registration, and identify all titles in a publisher package ordered through your agent (since those titles may not need to be registered if access is already established).

Package-specific reports are also available from agents. For example, some reports identify all titles subscribed to within a particular package as well as all other titles included in that package. These reports can be useful for evaluating the cost effectiveness of ordering packages versus maintaining  individual subscriptions to titles.

Will I have access to usage data to evaluate my collection?

Accurate, timely usage data is becoming increasingly important to collection development and evaluation as more purchasing dollars are being  appropriated for electronic resources. Many agents offer usage statistics to help your organization determine your most-used electronic subscriptions and properly allocate budget dollars to provide your end users with access to the content they need most.

Some agents offer usage statistics through their various services to assist with the access and management of your organization’s electronic services. Usage reports, available in online title listing or A-to-Z services, can help reveal how your end users are utilizing your collection. This includes the content for which they are searching and where they are finding it. Agents’ various overlap reports can offer further usage insight regarding duplicate journals and duplicate coverage in your collection, pointing out where you can make adjustments for more effective spending.

Though usage statistics are extremely important, their helpfulness is sometimes diminished when vendors and publishers report their statistics in  varying ways, making it difficult for you to compare usage for journals from different publishers or journals accessed through different vendor platforms.

To work toward a universal approach to usage reporting, agents are becoming active in the development of new standards for the reporting of usage statistics. Agents also offer usage statistics through non-proprietary services such as ScholarlyStats and federated search engines, such as WebFeat Express.

Will I have IP range management, publisher notification assistance, and help to access the publisher site?

Agents often offer additional services to help with e-journal access and management. Services can include an authentication gateway using your IP address (through secure functionality). By authenticating this way, access is immediate and requires no additional registration with the publisher.

Publisher sites can also be assigned durable URLs by the subscription vendor for ease of access. This eliminates the need to monitor URLs yourself,  saving you and your organization time and money.

With the assistance of an agent, changes in access and configuration are monitored, and a library can be notified immediately.

Who provides information about changes to subscription offerings, publication schedules, titles, publishers, etc.?

Agents often function as a first line of defense when changes to subscription offerings could affect your access rights. In these circumstances, your most helpful resource is timely, accurate knowledge of the changes that are taking place. When titles change formats, pricing structures are altered, publications are delayed or discontinued, or publishers are bought and sold, your access to your subscriptions will likely be affected in some way.

By maintaining data on available subscription offerings, agents work to reduce the amount of time your organization must spend identifying the details—this increases the accuracy and speed of orders and renewals.

Who identifies delayed or discontinued titles for which I should not be charged?

When ordering subscriptions, the necessity to deal with publication delays and discontinuations will inevitably arise. In most cases, a phone call or e-mail can clarify the issue. There are times when delays and discontinuations cause billing inaccuracies, resulting in your being charged for a  subscription you never received. Sorting out these discrepancies is time consuming—and unnecessary when working with an agent.

Agents maintain accurate records of publication schedules and can alert you if a title is delayed and won’t be arriving on its normal delivery date. In other cases, publishers may choose to discontinue a title. If this title wasn’t purchased through an agent, it may be quite a while before you are alerted to the status of the subscription.

Agents can prevent you from making unnecessary claims on a discontinued title by alerting you to the status of a title as soon as they become aware of its delay or discontinuation. They can also prevent you from being charged for a subscription that was discontinued. Changes to journals purchased in packages can also be conveyed to you through your subscription agent. Because package subscriptions include individual titles, each with its own publishing schedule, it is possible that titles a publisher names as part of a package may be delayed for some reason; they may also have changed names or been discontinued. By notifying you of delays and discontinuations for subscriptions purchased in packages, agents minimize the adverse effects of these situations.

When titles leave a package, who ensures that I still have rights to back content if it was promised in my license?

Your organization can lose access to purchased content when titles are sold by one publisher to another. Electronic titles purchased in packages further  complicate this situation; when the sold title is moved from one package to another—and your organization does not subscribe to the new package—access is often jeopardized.

Most organizations don’t have the resources to keep up with the changing ownership policies of every publisher with which they do business. Subscription agents, on the other hand, maintain regular contact with publishers and are often among the first to learn of titles that have been bought and sold. Therefore, agents can keep your organization informed at the front end about any change of title ownership.

By maintaining accurate auditing and tracking records, data on publishers’ access rights and subscription order history, agents are able to clarify exactly  which titles are included in your license. When titles leave a package, agents can help ensure your organization retains rights to back content if it was promised in the license agreement.

Agents keep accurate records of migrated content (regardless of whether a package is cancelled or a title moves to another publisher, even if one  publisher acquires another) and will work with publishers on your behalf to ensure your organization is not adversely impacted by these changes.

By taking into consideration your organization’s order history, the publisher access model, and knowledge of what is available at the publisher site, agents can calculate your coverage and determine the content to which you are entitled.

Will someone track and allocate cost per title to help me determine my total subscription spending?

Calculating and evaluating your total subscription spending can become an enormous task when working with invoices from every publisher with which you do business—many in different formats with varying information.

To simplify this process, agent invoices often contain item-level detail, allowing you to track cost per title. This information is helpful when evaluating your purchases and making renewal decisions. You can also use fund/charge/client codes provided on the invoices to allocate costs to various departments or budgets. This information enables your organization to properly allocate budget dollars from year to year on the subscriptions most needed by your organization.

Will I have a single contact for service and support of all purchased electronic materials?

The complexities of mass subscription purchases, especially electronic subscriptions, necessitate the need for knowledgeable customer service representatives that can address questions that arise through any stage of your subscription acquisition process—from ordering, registration, and payment to renewal, cancellation, etc.

This need has been acknowledged by subscription agents, and though the degree of customer service will vary by agent, many have expanded the level of their customer service and support to accommodate the intricacies of purchasing electronic subscriptions.

Some agents have even created new customer service positions that specialize in electronic titles and have added e-journal expertise at the local office level. Often the responsibilities of these electronic subscription experts are to monitor on your behalf and alert you when titles are delayed, discontinued or change publishers. In many cases, librarians who understand the nature of the content, having themselves come from a special library environment, hold these new positions.

Agent customer service representatives are knowledgeable of your entire subscription order, regardless of publisher, format, or type of purchase, and can function as your single contact for subscription information.

What other types of support services are offered to help me manage my print and electronic resources?

In addition to e-journal and print subscription access and management services, some agents also offer research database development and access,  including databases specific to the business, finance, marketing/public relations, and medical markets.

In addition, agents can offer online bookstores, providing a more robust full-service concept. If you’re part of a global organization and your position involves spending compliance, procurement  solutions, enterprise resource planning, or e-commerce, an agent’s Web-based catalog that’s compatible with your e-procurement system will ensure you can track your subscription spending across all cost centers. To discover the full set of subscription services offered by your agent, submit a request for proposal, consult the agent’s Web site, or contact the sales representative or client service contact affiliated with your account.

It Doesn’t Hurt to Ask

New services are constantly in production. As the world of electronic subscriptions evolves, agents are expanding the scope of their services. Agents continue to reengineer their approaches to subscription management, implementing new procedures to effectively handle and manage electronic formats.

Librarians are always looking for ways to become more efficient in their work. Resources are tight, so if activities can be streamlined in a cost-effective manner, it pays to evaluate. When working on the evaluation, consider putting a price on your time. What types of savings will you experience? Can a  subscription agent provide substantial cost-savings for you?

Holly Bussey is a corporate account representative for EBSCO Information Services. She’s served libraries and corporate accounts in New York for 13 years and has experience in a wide variety of library and non-library settings. She holds an MLS degree from Rutgers University, a bachelor’s degree in social and intellectual history from Wheaton College and an associate’s degree in business administration.

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