We follow the old-fashioned method of counting issues left on tables. We
have signs up everywhere asking patrons not to reshelve the periodicals
(and books, too). The student workers go out pick up everything, come
back and make little slash marks in a notebook under each title. It
gives us a general idea because of course some patrons reshelve anyway.
It's been invaluable information as to which titles to cancel, etc. All
uses are drastically down because of the Internet. For example, we used
to have almost 1000 uses for Time & Newsweek in a year. Now it's well
under 100.

All the books are barcoded, so the workers carry a portable scanner and
scan them every day to get in-house use. The system counts checkouts for
all formats, of course. So we can run reports on that. We don't barcode
all the periodicals because it's expensive and would make thousands of
item records in the system. We barcode the ones we think people might
check out. (We let patrons check out periodicals for one day, which is
rare for a college library. We do have less vandalism, however, so it's
probably worth it).
Hope this helps,
Carol Morse

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

Address:
Walla Walla College Library
Periodicals Dept.
104 S. College Ave.
College Place, WA  99324-1159

Carol Morse
Serials Librarian morsca@wwc.edu
509) 527-2684; fax 509) 527-2001
**************************************************

>>> zdb@UNI-BREMEN.DE 4/30/2004 1:44:01 AM >>>
Dear all,

at the moment we are considering how to measure the usage of our print
journal collection. We have a journal reading room here for the
current
issues - one part of the room is presented subject focussed and is
freely accessible by our patrons. The remaining journals are in the
back
of the room and the issues wanted have to be fetched by the enquiry
staff located in the reading room. Now I was wondering if anyone of
you
has experiences with print journal usage analysis and is willing to
share this with us?

Thanks for your help in advance and best wishes from sunny Bremen
(Germany)!

Rachel

---------------------------------------------------
Rachel Ellis
Electronic Resources Librarian
Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Bremen
Postfach 33 01 60
28331 Bremen
Germany
Tel: (0049)421-218-4902
Fax: (0049)421-218-2665
--------------------------------------------------