We haven't bound most of our materials in nearly 3 years, due to
budget.  We bind "flimsies," which amount to about 50 titles and we
chose that number in order to fit into our budget allotment, coupled
with some dollars for monographs re-binding (since we don't bind our
paperbacks either).  The remainder go in boxes on the shelf.

That said, I now wonder if we will ever go back and bind our unbound
materials, particularly our serials.  As more and more serials are
issued in electronic form and our budget doesn't enable us to keep both
electronic and print, we are purchasing fewer titles in print form,
making the binding of back issues questionable.  I think we are seeing
the slow or not-so-slow demise of serials in print form.

Of course, we are a Carnegie II not a Research I university, which
affects our policy decisions long-term.  Short-term, regardless of our
Carnegie classification, we just don't have to dollars to do it.

Aline

Aline Soules, Associate University Librarian
California State University, East Bay
tel. 510-885-4596
email:  aline.soules@csueastbay.edu

Eyler, Carol wrote:

> At Carleton, we are binding less because our binding budget was cut by
> 28%
> about two years ago.  This decision was made to provide some extra
> funds to
> minimize the erosion of our book budget, due to the steeply rising
> costs of
> e-journals.  Our collection development staff conferred with tech
> services
> first and we agreed that this would be do-able.
>
> Our basic strategy was to continue to bind things well, but to bind fewer
> volumes overall.  We recognize that boxing loose issues also costs
> money in
> terms of materials & staff time, but we feel that the titles we are not
> binding (and only sometimes boxing) are being used less and less.  We do
> not use any kind of temporary or in-house binding (except for pamphlets),
> feeling that the methods available are all damaging to the materials and
> that we are better off doing nothing, if we cannot bind them
> appropriately.
> We are fortunate to have a robust in-house repair program for general
> collections materials and are thus able to meet specialized needs for
> protective enclosures locally.
>
> We have a modest one-page document that we used to develop guidelines
> for reducing our binding.  We would be happy to share it with others,
> if there is interest. (I just learned that I cannot send an attachment
> to the list,) We implemented most of these provisions, reduced our
> binding accordingly and stayed within our new budget with little
> problem.  We continue with the same budget level.
>
> If you are interested in our guidelines document or more details or
> statistics about what we bind, box and leave loose, we would be happy
> to provide them.
>
> ~Carol Eyler
> =========================================
> Carol E. Eyler                                 ceyler@carleton.edu
> Head of Technical Services
> Carleton College Library                507-646-4268 voice
> One North College St.                    507 646-4087 fax
> Northfield, MN 55057
> =========================================
>
>
> --On Thursday, October 27, 2005 11:18 AM -0500 Sarah Sanford
> <ssanford@GUSTAVUS.EDU> wrote:
>
>> We are using magazine boxes, three-ring binders (which I prefer for
>> thinner periodicals for accessibility), and are looking at special
>> archive boxes for extremely old, fragile periodicals.
>>
>> I also have a question for Matt and others: why have you chosen to bind
>> less. What is your selection process for deciding which journals to
>> bind/not bind, and has anyone come across a binding system or product
>> they swear by? Last year, our Peg Binding machine broke and is not cost
>> effective to replace. We have since used a Therm-a-Bind leatherette
>> machine, but my feeling is that it is too permanent of a solution, in
>> that if there were a mistake in the binding process, we would have to
>> first unglue the issues (which destroys the actual issue binding) and
>> reglue. It's messy and I question its usefulness for preservation.
>> Sarah
>>
>> Matt Person wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> Our library is now doing less binding.
>>>
>>> I was wondering if anyone in a similar situation has settled upon any
>>> creative solutions to keeping together
>>> unbound issues of a journal...besides magazine boxes.
>>>
>>> Thanks for the info,
>>> Matt Person
>>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Sarah Sanford
>> Serials Manager
>> Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library
>> Gustavus Adolphus College
>> St. Peter, MN 56082
>> Phone: 507-933-7562
>> Fax: 507-933-6292
>