Beth,

Until January 2010, our journals only circulated to graduate students and faculty, for 5 days with no renewals. The demand for print issues has declined over the last several years; however, there are those titles that we only still receive in print only. About this time last year, we decided to look at allowing undergrad checkout. I had many requests from undergraduate students asking to check out the architecture journals, which are still primarily only available in print. We decided to do a trial for a semester. It went very well - we didn't end up with any missing/lost/damaged issues - so we have continued to allow undergraduate journal checkout.

We also allow our bound volumes to circulate for 5 days, with no renewal. We do not use protective coverings.

I should add that in our main library facility, we only keep the current five years of our print journal titles. The older issues/volumes are kept in an off-campus storage facility. We do offer a free service to NDSU patrons requesting articles from volumes in storage, where the article is scanned and sent to the patron as a pdf attachment via e-mail. This service gets very high use. If the patron would prefer to look at the entire volume, it is then sent to our main library for them to pick up, and the patron can then check it out for 5 days.

Jenny

--
Jenny Grasto
Downtown Campus Librarian/NDSU Library

Dept 2080, PO Box 6050
Fargo ND 58108-6050
p: 701.231.8616
p: 701.231.8191
http://library.ndsu.edu/downtown


On 11/11/2010 1:06 PM, Bob Persing wrote:
From: Beth L S Wages (EWages@SF.EDU)
To: SERIALST
Subject: Circulating Journals
Date: 11/11/10 1:49 PM

At the request of several faculty members and students, my small academic library is considering changing our policy on circulating journals. Currently, we allow a 24-hour check-out with no renewals for faculty members only. I am researching what other institutions do with journals as we work to make our decision. Do you allow them to circulate and, if so, to whom? What is your loan period, and do you allow renewals? Do you have a lot of replacement costs from journals either not coming back or being damaged while out? Do you make use of protective coverings to help cut down on wear and tear? If you have bound journals, do you allow the entire books to circulate? Approximately how many journals are checked out at any one time?
 
Any information you can provide would be very helpful as we try to come to a decision.
 
Thank you!
 
Beth
 
Beth Shively Wages
Lee & Jim Vann Library
University of Saint Francis
2701 Spring Street
Fort Wayne, IN
ewages@sf.edu