From: Andrea Imre <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, Oct 4, 2016 at 12:35 PM

Hello,

My library purchases Oxford Univ Press online journals as individual
subscriptions and we pay for those via a subscription agent. Each year
we activate our subscriptions by agreeing to a click-through license,
or sometimes they are activated by pub as soon as they processed our
payments.  (the license language is
https://www.oxfordjournals.org/resource/pdf/instsitelicence.pdf ).
Note that there is no mention of an automatic renewal nor is there a
mention of a 30-day cancellation notice in the license.

Last week I received a letter from OUP informing us that from Jan.
2017 OUP is moving to an automatic renewal system for online journal
subscriptions to “save time and guarantee continuous access to your
chosen titles.”  The process is described as follows:

“In September you will receive an invoice from us for renewal of your
online subscriptions for 2017.  You must contact us by December 1st
2016 to cancel any subscriptions.  Any subscriptions you don’t cancel
will automatically renew on January 1st 2017.” (emphasis added)

I was perfectly happy with the system where we pay a subscription fee
for an individual journal subscription and publisher’s receipt of our
subscription fee is the indication of our intent to renew. The lack of
a cancellation notice should not be interpreted as intent to renew.
There are way too many ways this new proposed process can go wrong
(e.g. account mix ups, missed communications, delays in receiving
cancellation notices, etc.) resulting in unwanted charges for the
library.

Have you all seen this notice? The letter I received from OUP was
dated Sept 2 but I received it on Sept 30 only.

My subscription agent has not received a copy of this notice from OUP.
Note that we have not received the list of subscriptions in September
as indicated in the letter either.

Is anyone else as concerned about this proposed process as I am?

Andrea

********************************

Andrea Imre
Electronic Resources Librarian
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Morris Library - MC6632
605 Agriculture Dr
Carbondale, IL 62901
phone: 618-453-4339
fax:  618-453-3452
e-mail: [log in to unmask]