Every half decade or so, the library at a large university files complaints with us about missing issues of the Annals of Improbable Research. A few weeks ago, they sent us a new complaint.
Our circulation director, Katherine Meusey, by persistently writing and phoning the library, made contact with an official there. She reports:
Finally spoke with someone at the Univ. of ———-, after calling and writing to them. They admit that they haven’t paid for a subscription since “late 2002, or maybe 2003”, and I explained to them that this is why they don’t have any issues beyond that date.
They also complained about a few missing issues from earlier years (from 2001, for example, for which they filed a “missing issues” claim a few years later, whereupon my predecessor in this job sent them duplicate copies and told them that we would be happy to send them third or fourth copies, too, but that they would have to pay for those.).
I reiterated that due to the eons that had passed for the earlier years they were claiming, we couldn’t honor their claim. They got all whiny about it, saying that they wouldn’t have claimed them if they had received them. I replied, in the most loving way imaginable, that they’d sent me a list claiming issues they hadn’t even paid for. After that, there was silence on the line.
By the way: The magazine is now open access (except in the view of one official, who thinks not), as well as available in pleasing paper form.