Dear Sir/Madam: 

We read with great interest Leslie Walker's article entitled "The Company That Bought The Bust" (Washington Post, 12 June 2003), but we are concerned about a number of factually incorrect statements in it. 

Elsevier was one of many publishing partners of Divine's library subscription service, RoweCom, and indeed one of RoweCom's creditors. Elsevier and other creditors also have a significant interest in the lawsuit brought by RoweCom against Divine. 

Although it is possible that some publishers stopped delivering to libraries as a result of RoweCom's problems last year, none of the major publishers did so. Therefore the statement in the article that "…RoweCom's publishing partners stopped delivering magazines to thousands of American libraries…" is misleading. In fact the consortium of publishers went out of their way to ensure and inform the libraries that they could count on uninterrupted fulfillment of their subscriptions, despite not having received payment for the subscriptions from RoweCom. 

Elsevier, for example, informed libraries subscribing to Elsevier titles through RoweCom in December 2002 that their 2003 subscriptions would be "graced" until the end of March. In March 2003, when it became obvious that the sale of RoweCom to EBSCO and clear subscriber information would require more time, Elsevier informed customers that their subscriptions would be honored to the end of 2003. Elsevier and most other major publishers also signed the agreement, approved by the bankruptcy court, which provides that publishers will fulfill subscriptions in return for prepaid library customer claims against RoweCom/Divine. 

The RoweCom problem came about, not because RoweCom's operations were inherently unprofitable, but because Divine management, including Andrew "Flip" Flipowski, elected to take monies from RoweCom which had been paid in by library customers in connection with orders for 2003 publications. It is hard to understand the claim attributed to Mr. Flipowski that Divine's acquisition of RoweCom was the "undoing" of Divine. On its own, without this transfer of cash from RoweCom to Divine, RoweCom would have had enough cash to fulfill the orders placed with it by its library customers. Your reporter and Mr. Flipowski should look elsewhere for the answers about why Divine failed and why that failure has so harmed so many customers and vendors. 

Sincerely, 
Eric Merkel-Sobotta 
Director, Corporate Relations 
Elsevier