Suspended animation?

Science Fiction now has become fact. This is made obvious by the print journal titles that we subscribe to that have appeared to be in deep "suspended animation." I don't know *why* they have been put into this state or at *what point in time* they plan to be readmitted to the land of the living, er, publishing.


At what point is it reasonable for a publisher to give up on a title and be honest with the subscribers that "yes, it *has* actually ceased publication" and stop taking fees each year? I have a list of publications that the vendor lists as "will order when current."


Some of these have been on this list since I started nigh on 10 years ago. Most of these publications are at least 6 years or more behind on their cover chronology. Several have been taken over by new publishers, which promptly raise the price while promising the moon and then...deliver nothing. One of the publications that is on my list of "suspended" titles kept promising to blossom into an online only publication. Three years in, said publication just notified the vendor that they were ceasing publication altogether.


I am not sure that these publishers realize what a mess these "suspended" titles can create or how much time they can consume. Each time I run a claiming report, these pop up. I promptly go to the vendor site and claim them, again, and wait for a response. Then I go into our ILS and do clean up or change them to an inactive control. Oftentimes, we are only aware a title has totally and completely ceased when we wind up with a large credit invoice from our vendor. Fortunately, our vendor lists what title the credit was for and this helps the process along. Then I have to clean up the MARC record...you can see how this snowballs.


Personally, I think there should be some sort of unwritten serials rule -- that if a title is "suspended" more than 2 years, the publication should cease altogether... and never be "reawakened" from "deep suspended animation"!