Ah, one of my favourite questions.  YES.  We changed from title to call
number,  current as well as bound, and our use figures rose sharply,
according to the counts we do which may or may not be faithful.  At the
same time, we were also

1. moving all the serials (over 2,000 titles, aboout 1,600 of them
current) from three floors onto one floor

2. putting all but the last few years into compact shelving (which was
what tipped the balance in favour of the call number arrangement).

People browse serials too, not only books.  It makes sense to have like
subjects grouped together.  Suppose you don't find the issue of Newsweek
you were after - why not have the New Yorker, Macleans, the Progressive,
the Washington Post and the Middle East News close by, instead of Noise
control engineering journal, Northeast African studies, and Notices of
the American Mathematical Society?

I don't trust our use figures 100%, because I think the shelvers
sometimes 'cook' them, but I do think classified arrangement has been a
help to readers.

The only things we arrange by title are the current newspapers, which
because of their size and the way they're shelved are kept quite
separate from the rest - and once we bind those, they are classified
too.

Have fun!

Lesley Tweddle
ltweddle@aucegypt.edu, tel. 797-6912

Head, Serials Department,
American University in Cairo - Libraries & Learning Technologies.
POSTAL ADDRESS:
American University in Cairo, Library - Serials, 11 Youssef el-Guindy
Street, Bab el-Louk, Cairo, Egypt.
FAX 792-3824.  International dialling code from USA 011-202; from UK
002-02