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Staying Connected: Arjan Huisman of Elsevier’s Customer Service Focus Project Reports from Amsterdam

Arjan Huisman of Elsevier’s Customer Service Focus Project Reports from Amsterdam

Q: How does Elsevier update librarians on ScienceDirect title holdings or title changes?

Most customer service questions relating to ScienceDirect involve titles of electronic holdings. Titles are added to the database, transferred to other publishers, discontinued or change their names. Naturally, customers ask us to provide the right information at the right time.

Elsevier provides title change information in several ways:

• Each quarter we update all title change information on the ScienceDirect Info site.
• For ScienceDirect customers, we provide the ScienceDirect Title Alert delivering updates on new, transferred, discontinued or changed titles.
• Thanks to the launch of the Admin Tool in 2005, we allow libraries to control
• management of their ScienceDirect (as well as Scopus) accounts - including access to holdings reports.
• And, now, each quarter we send out our new, customized title change notification.

Our new service - the customized title change notification - is what I really want to talk about in this issue. First off, I want to say that’s it’s due to input from librarians around the globe that we’ve introduced this new service.

What does this new service entail? Our sales support teams worldwide are now set to send - on a quarterly basis - customized emails identifying changes impacting specific institutions. Each quarter moving forward, you can receive an email identifying title changes important to your institute. For each title change, we will provide information on the journal and the implication of the change for your contract.

These customized emails will go to ScienceDirect administrators, as long as our back office staff knows of them. If you want to receive such emails as well, contact your Elsevier E-sales Support Coordinator or Account Manager or check out sign-up information on the ScienceDirect Info site.

Note that when you subscribe to the standard ScienceDirect Title Alert, you’re not signing up for our new, customized title change notification. You can however sign up for both types of services. Sign-up details for both appear on the ScienceDirect Info site.

How do the two services differ? The standard ScienceDirect Title Alert presents all title changes, whereas title change information in the new notification is customized per the current license of each particular customer.

At the time of writing we are the first major publisher to offer customized title change notification to our customers. We sent out the first batch of customized title change notification emails in November and customer feedback has been very positive.

If you take advantage of the new, customized title change notification service, please let us know what you think.