Breakout session 1a: Agents, publishers and added value: how do libraries view the performance of subscription agents and journal publishers?

I was excited about attending my first briefing session as one of the speakers was Rick Anderson who I had heard at UKSG a few years ago talking about the abolition of the check-in process at the University of Nevada - an interesting talk but scary thought for those working with printed periodicals.
This session looked at the results of a survey carried out to investigate levels of satisfaction from publishers and subscription agents by academic libraries in the US. It was found that subscription agents generally provided a better service than publishers, but on resoling access queries for electronic subscriptions publishers fared well. There was some debate in the audience about whether the agent or the publisher would be the first point of contact to resolve issues, with many going direct to the publisher. At Hull we tend to work through the agent, and I wondered if maybe we should try to resolve issues through the publisher if the agent doesn’t quickly resolve problems. It was also highlighted that whereas in print periodicals a missing issue would be a missing for only one library missing electronic content may affect 1000 of libraries worldwide.
Kathryn