Profile-Tina Feick
Profi le-Tina Feick
ATG Interviews Tina Feick <> 0
Director of Sales 0
Marketing 0
Subscription Agents 0
by Katina Strauch (Editor 0
Against the Grain) <> 0
0 Director of Sales and Marketing, North American Library Services Office HARRASSOWITZ Booksellers & Subscription Agents 820 University Blvd. South , Suite 2-C, Mobile, AL 36609 Phone: 1-800-348-6886 • (251) 342-2929 • Fax: (251) 342-5732
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ATG: Tina, you retired from Swets a few
years ago, right? You have worked for several
othercompanies,right?
TF: Let’s start with the second question first
— I am very fortunate to have worked for three
great companies. After being Head of Serials at
Princeton University, I went to work as a
Regional Sales Manager for Blackwell’s Periodicals
Division (Oxford, England). This was in 1984.
In 2000, Blackwell’s Information Services (new
name) merged with Swets and I went along with
the merger and held positions in Customer Service
and by 2005, I was Vice President for Customer
Relations at Swets Information Services in the
New Jersey office. So, in reality, with living
through company name changes and mergers, I
can say that I worked for 24 years for the same
organization — just different names, management
and operating systems.
I have also been fortunate to be involved in
several organizations — such as NASIG (North
American Serials Interest Group) and SISAC
(Serials Industry Systems Advisory
Committee).
Truthfully, I left Swets in March 2008 in order
to spend time with my husband. He had retired
at the beginning of the year and we decided to
take a little time to explore what we wanted to do
with the rest of our lives. I knew that eventually
I would have to get a job at some point — too
young for Medicare and Social Security.
ATG: When and why did you decide to start
againwithHarrassowitz?
TF: After three months of traveling and
visiting family and friends, I decided that I needed to
start exploring job options. My one requirement
was that I wanted to work from home.
I had not even started looking when I got a
call from Dr. Knut Dorn, Managing Partner of
HARRASSOWITZ, the bookseller and
subscription agent based in Wiesbaden, Germany. He
wondered if I could be coaxed out of “retirement”
and come to work for HARRASSOWITZ.
As you know, Dr. Dorn can be very charming
and persuasive. Of course, I had always admired
HARRASSOWITZ, especially while I was
working at Princeton. I was deeply honored
to have been offered a position and I gladly
accepted. I started in June 2008 as the Director of
Sales and Marketing.
ATG: Tell us about your job at Harrassowitz.
What new initiatives are being planned.
TF: As Director of Sales and Marketing
for North America for HARRASSOWITZ, my
against the grain
people profile
k Born and lived: Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania — west of Philadelphia.
c Grew up in Cheyney which is in Chester County — the Mushroom Capital of the
i World (really!).
e
ed UCation: BA in Sociology (Anthropology) from allegheny College (Meadville,
F PA), MA in Librarianship from the University of d enver and an MBA from t emple
University in Philadelphia.
a
n f irst Jo B: Head of Gifts and Exchange, f ree l ibrary of philadelphia — running
i book sales and buying/selling rare books. Then on to Serials jobs.
T in My spare ti Me i li Ke to: Read and collect books, go to the theatre and opera,
and visit museums.
f avorite BooKs:
Mystery books — the latest Kathy reichs .
philosophy:
Trust goes with respect
Most Meanin Gf Ul Career a Chieve Ment:
Winning nasi G’s first Champion Award in 2005 for
helping to found and support nasi G through the years.
Goal, i hope to aChieve five years froM
noW: Getting all of our 20,000 books recorded
in a database.
hoW/Where do i see the indUstry in five
years: Partnerships.
I am very pleased to be again part of a sales
team. It is a terrific experience to be able to meet
with our customers and help continue
HARRASSOWITZ’s reputation for quality service along
with the support of such great staff.
As you can imagine, with the focus on high
quality service, HARRASSOWITZ is constantly
evaluating and enhancing its service offerings.
Over the past year, the subscription part of the
company, for example, has launched
OttoSerials Renewal Management (online renewals)
and HARRASSOWITZ E-Stats, consolidated
COUNTER usage statistics with acquisitions
and cost information. Both projects were requests
from customers.
On the monographic side of the house, and I
am so excited to be working with books again,
HARRASSOWITZ has been developing
eBook services including partnering with several
platform providers. Being both a subscription
agent and a bookseller, HARRASSOWITZ is
well placed to handle subscriptions for eBook
packages and also facilitate individual eBook
purchases.
For monographic approval plans,
HARRASSOWITZ has added the Scandinavian and
Benelux regions to the geographical coverage — due
to customer demand. The music score service
has also been enhanced to include scores fro (...truncated)