Linda:
I wish you luck in your shifting project! I do not have a rule of thumb.  A
couple of things have helped me, although the first one takes a long time
to accomplish since it involves the participation of a lot of people.

1) I have instituted what I call "weed points"; that is, how old is too
old? (Kind of like a re-order point in a stock room.) Since we are an
undergrad-only school, our students almost never have to go back and
perform extensive historical searches.  I ask faculty in each department to
decide what the weed points are for the periodicals their library
allocation pays for.  Sciences of course have a shorter time
period--sometimes 5 years.  Humanities may want to keep things on the
shelves 20 years, in which case we look at microforms also.  I ask them, if
a student used (for example) this 7-year-old source for a paper, would this
be acceptable?  I tell them that I'm not trying to clear the shelves, but
trying to avoid uneven weeding done in the past purely because we've run
out of room.

2) I had my serials coordinator take a list of all our periodicals with a
bunch of preprinted labels that say, "Leave ______ inches on shelf for
growth".  For any active subscriptions, she determined approximately how
many additional inches needed to be left open for about 3 years' additional
growth, filled in the blank on the label, and put it on the Princeton file
box of the most recent issues.  Of course, it wasn't perfect, but it did
help space things out reasonably well.

Shifting on a huge scale is a headache, but for me it was also a great way
to find things that weren't correctly catalogued, missing issues, etc.
Good luck!
Sue Shelly, BSN, MLS
Serials and Services Librarian, Good Library
Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana

At 05:08 PM 2/8/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>             Hello all,
>
>
>
>Do any of you have a "rule of thumb" about how much shelf space (i.e,
>inches or  Princeton files)  is GENERALLY needed for
>
>Subscriptions?   I understand some journals can be almost 2" thick, while
>magazines only ½", but is there a general rule of thumb for
>
>Space needed for monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, weekly, serials, etc.?
>
>
>
>I am shifting our periodicals and am trying to allow space for at least 3
>years of growth for most titles.
>
>
>
>Please respond to me at heimburgerlk@cctech.edu
>
>
>
>Thank you!
>
>
>
>Linda Heimburger
>
>Central Carolina Technical College Library
>
>Sumter, SC
>
>
>
>