From: CYNTHIA SHELTON <cshelton_at_library.ucla.edu>
In early Feb. I asked for opinions on discontinuing the circulation of
journals (no. 1687). Below I have appended answers from members on this
list that came to me directly and a couple of answers from a CD
consortium reflector. To sum up: there is not a clear majority of
opinion on the question of whether to circulate or not. In addition
there are plenty of variations in practice between these two options.
SERIALST reflects the same. My committee forwarded a recommendation
that our graduate library in the social sciences and humanities continue
to circulate journals. Lack of budgetary savings, absense of clear
benefit or mandate to not circulate, and technical difficulties in
implementation supported this conclusion not to change. Thanks for
those that replied from this list. Cindy Shelton
Below are the responses. I've numbered them to distinguish them.
(1) This issue resurfaces with predictable regularity every year or
so. Librarians are in favor of limiting circulation of journals:
faculty are not. Two years ago we got as far with the proposal to
recommend the circulation periods of all bound/unbound
periodicals to 2 hours, with the exception of journals paged from
NRLF, which would continue to circulate for 7 days. The proposal
did not fly. As long as we have to consult faculty before we
implement these changes the issue will remain stalemated. Many of the
branches do not circulate periodicals, so bringing Doe in line
with current branch circulation policy seems only reasonable. But
it is proving to be a really tough policy to sell to faculty.
Visiting scholars always comment to me on our liberal circulation
policies. And ask me to do something about it!
Hope this helps.
Good Luck,
Phoebe [Berkeley]
(2) The circulation of journals at the U of Chicago fits into this
problem.
Specifically, very few journals in the Social Science and Humaties Library
(Regenstein) are non-circulating. With the increased use of the databases
in my area (ABI/Inform and Econlit), I felt that journals falling into my
area of responsibility needed to be reviewed for possible changing to
non-circulating. Too often were students with a citation were having to
place recalls for journal that were checked out. Of course the journal may
not be returned for 2-3 weeks which really is unacceptable. The uses of
the indexes will only increase, increase the frustration of our patrons
needing the article, etc...
It is an enormous task to undertake and the same sentiment is not
shared
by the other disciplines in the same library. The Crear Library for the
Sciences was able to make a blankent decision that no journal would
circulate. In my case, using the list of journals listed in the two main
databases for my areas of responsibility, I am selectively changing journal
titles from circulating to building use only. I did have to talk with
technical services be proceed in order to work this into their work
schedule. At this point I can send up to 2-3 titles per week to have their
status changed and labels placed on the volumes. As you may imagine, this
will be a long but much needed process. The process is slowed even more
when I find that many volumes of a title that I wish to change are already
charged out. In this case, I have to place recalls and wait until all of
the volumes have been returned before I can request that the title be
changed to building use only. I have not heard any complaint about the
titles changed so far. I am still receiving complaints about titles that
haven't been changed. When I get a complaint about a specific title, it is
the next one in line to be changed. It would be ideal to make a blanket
decision in your case as I would think that the justification would be
similar. Stamping and record changing could be implemented over time if
the policy was changed so that circulation of journals was prohibited.
Jeffry Dean Archer
Bibliographer for Business and Economics
Regenstein Library A-60
University of Chicago
(3) Doheny never circulated journals. While people grumble (and give
UCLA as an example), they accept that fact. We do on occasion make
exceptions (i.e., take a journal to a department to photocopy). Also, I
wonder if damage to journals is comparable. Our circulation people always
complain about people ripping articles out of journals.
Ruth (USC)
(4)Your question regarding circulating journals was forwarded to me by
our Collection Development officer. I would appreciate somehow
hearing the answers you receive. Could you forward them to me or to
the list and I will ask Margaret to forward from the list.
We currently circulate bound journals for three days. Three or four
years ago I tried to to reduce the loan period to 24 hours as part of
a complete overhaul of circulation policies. In presenting my
proposal to tha academic senate, one faculty member complained about
not being able to get his office staff to copy things that quickly.
That led to other comments, and I left there concluding to that
policy alone. Now, the University is about to convert to semesters,
so I am in the midst of reconsidering circ policies again. I might be
willing to make one more stab at eliminating all circulation of
journals if I could back it up with similar policies of peers.
Thanks.
Dan Lee
Head, Circulation Division
Marriott Library
University of Utah
(5)I'm a member of something called the Serials Implementation Team here
at NYU, a committee which is looking into the possibility of having
our periodicals circulate (currently they don't). Another issue we
are examining is the possibility of creating a Periodicals Center in
the basement of our building rather than having them placed (like you)
on all floors by LC classification. However, a major problem is that
we intend to place whatever material we do move to the basement in
compact shelving. And after having done quite extensive research in
the library literature as well as called a number of libraries that
currently have compact shelving, my impression is that compact storage
and a periodicals center work well, just not together.
Everyone I have spoken with seems to feel that heavily used materials
should not be placed in compact shelving, and, of course, some of our
journals are quite heavily used, and since we are considering letting
them circulate, we may run into more problems than we bargained for.
Anyway, since I have used URL and other libraries as models re. the
circulation of journals in our discussions, I would be interested to
learn why you are considering discontinuing this service.
All the best,
Rebecka
Librarian for Classics and Philosophy
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
New York University
70 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012-1091
Tel.: (212) 998-2515
E-mail: rebecka.lindau_at_nyu.edu
(6) GOing thru old email and saw this message and wanted to respond.
tHe faculty are always upset that perioicals are never there
as we had long loan periods in Main STacks tho branches have
varyng loan periods from no loan/2 hour to one week.
The Academic Senate Library Comm requested that DOe periodicals
be noncirculating but the Library felt this was
unrealistic with many users wanting exceptions
and would cause damage to materials with users tearing out
pages. So a compromise was reached and Doe periodicals can be
checked out for a week (bound and unbound same loan period).
Selectors can at anytime make certain titles
noncirculationg and a note appears in GLADIS showing this.
Even with this there are still complaints about not
finding the volumes on the shelf. OUr turn around time
for shelving would not win any speed prizes. In GSSI we pulled
10 journal titles from Main STacks and have shelved 10
years worth in our Reading Room. These are core pol sci and sociology
journals whioch were always off shelf. I think grad students
really appreciate having these handy for copying. They can
even check out for 2 hours to take to offices to copy but cant
take home or overnight.
Beth (Berkeley)
(7)Re your query about circulation of periodical....many shades of deja
vu
here. We've gone round and round and round on this issue. Every few years
some member of the academic senate decides that no journals should
circulate because (s)he can't find the one volume needed at a particular
time. There is a great huffing and puffing and endless discussions and in
the end those who want to check them out always prevail. We did curtail
circulation on certain LC classes of journals in the last go-round on
this. Gail Nichols, Head of our Access Services Department, could fill you
in on which ones. We do have some titles specified as library use only; I
think some others circulate for one day and others for one week [confusing
huh?] However, it seems to work!
All for now,
Jane
--------------------------------------
Jane A. Kimball
Humanities/Social Science Librarian
Shields Library
University of California, Davis
Davis, California 95616
(530) 752-6171
jakimball_at_ucdavis.edu
Cynthia Shelton
Head, Bibliographers Group
UCLA University Research Library
1540 URL
Box 951575
L.A., CA 90095-1575
ph: (310) 825-1324
fax: (310) 206-4974
email: cshelton_at_library.ucla.edu
Received on Wed Apr 15 1998 - 18:19:47 EDT