27 January 2003
Rowecom Financial Situation: Open Letter to Library Community
An ad-hoc group of Rowecom library customers and publisher vendors has issued an open letter to the library community. This is set out below.
"As you may be aware, an ad-hoc group of RoweCom library customers and publisher vendors was formed in late December to investigate the issues arising from the announcement by RoweCom's parent company, divine inc. ("divine") on December 20, 2002 that divine had decided to no longer support the RoweCom subscription agent business.
"That group now includes nearly 800 libraries and publishers. Its steering committee has worked with RoweCom and divine and potential purchasers to facilitate negotiations over the acquisition of the global assets of RoweCom in a way that would protect the interests of libraries by ensuring continuity of subscription service.
You may have seen the press release of RoweCom and EBSCO dated January 24, 2003 that indicates that EBSCO and RoweCom have signed a non-binding letter of intent to enable EBSCO to acquire the RoweCom subscription agent business. We believe that this proposed transaction represents the a good value proposition for RoweCom creditors and is a critical step toward resolving the issues raised by the divine announcement.
"The structure and mechanics require further attention and discussion, and we will continue working with EBSCO to help establish and develop
recommended procedures for the transition and to ensure that RoweCm prepaid orders that are not already transmitted to publishers are
fulfilled. The committee expects to make such recommendations within the next two weeks; in the interim it recommends that publishers
continue to fulfill subscriptions of libraries who are RoweCom clients regardless of current payment status.
"An important consideration in the transaction as proposed is that the monetary value of current RoweCom customer orders that are subsequently placed with EBSCO will contribute to the consideration EBSCO would pay. Increased consideration will mean a greater return to Rowecom creditors, which we believe maximizes value for customers who have prepaid Rowecom orders. We urge publishers and RoweCom customers to contact their EBSCO representative for further information.
"In addition, you can access the ad-hoc group's site at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rowecomcreditors.
Steering Committee: Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, NIH Library, National Institutes of Health, Ohio University
Federal Library and Information Center, The Library of Congress, Elsevier, John Wiley & Sons, Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers (represented by the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the British Medical Journal Group), American Institute of Physics and Oxford University Press."
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