Here's a question for you all:

We had a consultant come in this week and he was amazed that we actually
bind as much as we do. "The half-life of a lot of these magazines is just
6 months to begin with," he said, "and then a lot of these periodicals are
available in full-text online." He suggested that we make a concerted
effort to look into what we bind unnecessarily. It got us looking in a
different direction. Anyone else running into this? How much are you NOT
binding because the online resources have rendered the bound volumes
obsolete and unnecessary?

Another question: how many of you have glass-to-the-edge photocopiers? Our
consultant was amazed, appalled, even, that we do not have a
glass-to-the-edge photocopier. (Our copiers are handled by an outside
vendor; said vendor has graced us with snazzy new state-of-the-art digital
copiers which jam frequently and really are not designed for the kind of
copying or the frequency of copying the students do here.)

So I guess that's TWO questions, eh?

Max Shenk
Periodicals Assistant
Montgomery County (PA) Community College Library
<MShenk@MC3.EDU>

On Wed, 10 Oct 2001, Glenda Alvin wrote:

> Our Acquistions and Serials Departments recently merged under my
> supervision.  This is the first time I have directly supervised serials
> and I trying to set up a bindery schedule for the periodicals.  I had
> the library assistant identify the frequency of check-in----weekly,
> monthly, bi-monthly, etc.,
>
> Is there any standard schedule for when periodicals should be sent to
> the bindery, such as all of the weeklies (e.g. Time, Newsweek) should
> go every 3 months?  I would really appreciate suggestions.  Thank you.
>
> Glenda Alvin
> Head, Acquisitions and Serials
> Tennessee State University
> Nashville, TN
> <galvin@TNSTATE.EDU>