Wed, Aug 29, 4:52 PM

Hello everyone,

I know the question of how to house and circulate McSweeney's Quarterly has come up on this list in the past.  My library doesn't currently subscribe, but we've received a request for issue 53, which features "seven stories printed on eight party balloons, which one must blow up to read": 

https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/mcsweeney-s-issue-53

My colleague in collections management laments, "I just cannot come up with a creative solution to purchase the bag of balloons, capture the stories, respect copyright, and not share germs."  I'm wondering how those of you with circulating subscriptions to McSweeney's plan to handle this issue.  

Thanks!

-Chris

********************************

Christine Ruotolo

Director of Arts and Humanities

Liaison for English & Philosophy

University of Virginia Library

ruotolo@virginia.edu

434.982.2652

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Wed, Aug 29, 8:16 PM

Great question! Might you circulate it with a small hand pump that could be used to inflate the balloons without mouth contact?

We check out headphones with sterilizing wipes so our users can wipe them down, but that might not satisfy some germ-phobic balloon-fiction enthusiasts.

(Another thought: It would be fair use to provide digital copies of a given story to individual patrons, on the model of interlibrary loan/document delivery for single book chapters or journal articles. But the balloons might be difficult to scan...)

--Sam Lohmann

Thu, Aug 30, 9:59 AM

My predecessor canceled our subscription to McSweeney’s, both because of serials budget cuts but also because we couldn’t house all the unusual formats. It’s too bad because I think our students would use it, but I also don’t want to deal with things like this!

Gina

Mon, Sep 3, 9:40 AM

I have no real ideas, but I do love the comment from your collections management colleague, Chris.

Buy two copies for special collections, one inflated and one un-inflated? Then I suppose you’d need an entire exhibit case for the balloons, artfully arranged so they could all be read.

Best,

Amanda

Tue, Sep 4, 11:10 AM

Hi –

We have an agreement with Special Collections in which all of the “ordinary” McSweeny’s go to the circulating collection and they take all of the “special” issues. I’m happy to leave this conundrum up to them. I’m wondering if a photograph of the inflated balloon might do the trick.

Cheers,

Sarah