Over the years we have really pared down the number of print newspapers we carry as print copies seem to be read less and less and the major papers are also carried online.

For our local papers we keep 1 month, so each week we recycle out a week from the bottom of the stack. For the Wall Street Journal we keep one month, but for the New York Times we keep only two full weeks starting with a Sunday paper (which gives us a stack of papers about the same size as a month's worth of the others).

all the best,
Teresa

Teresa Imfeld, MLIS

Serials, Acquisitions, & Cataloging Specialist

Warren Wilson College

Swannanoa, NC 28778
828-771-3898

On Wed, Oct 26, 2016 at 4:10 PM, Williams, Ginger <ginger.williams@txstate.edu> wrote:

At one library, we set retention periods based on the height of a stack of papers on the shelf. The periodicals room staff told us that stacks over a foot high tended to get messy quickly, so our goal was to limit stacks to 12 inches high. As I recall, we ended with a two-week retention period for dailies, a two-month period for weeklies and biweeklies, and a six month period for monthlies. The only exception was our local paper; we kept several stacks for it and discarded as microfilm copy arrived. – Ginger Williams

From: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG] On Behalf Of Mark Winek
Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2016 1:56 PM
To: SERIALST@LISTSERV.NASIG.ORG
Subject: [SERIALST] newspaper retention periods

Do you have a rule of thumb for how long you retain newspapers on the shelf?

We receive a variety of international and domestic newspapers that are dailies, weeklies, biweeklies and monthlies. All are discarded after a variety of time periods. I'm trying to standardize that based on the publication frequency and I'm wondering if others have a rule of thumb that works. Any information is helpful!

Mark Winek

To unsubscribe from the SERIALST list, click the following link:
http://listserv.nasig.org/scripts/wa-NASIG.exe?SUBED1=SERIALST&A=1

To unsubscribe from the SERIALST list, click the following link:
http://listserv.nasig.org/scripts/wa-NASIG.exe?SUBED1=SERIALST&A=1