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