Thank you Steve for pointing us to this comprehensive article which is in
Journal of Academic Librarianship Jul 94 v.20 no.3.  There are many
interesting references to other resources as well.

I too left a little wiggle room in my calculations using 35" rather than the
actual 36".  I have used this spreadsheet twice, for our periodicals
collection only, and it has work well.  I am happy to share the spreadsheet,
please email requests or questions directly to me ssmith@bethel.edu rather
than to the list.

Sally

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sally Smith
Bethel University Library
Serials Dept.
3900 Bethel Drive  St. Paul, MN 55112

Phone:  651-635-8544   Fax:  651-635-1971
http://www.library.bethel.edu/

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of STEVE
BLACK@FACULTY@ACADEMICAFFAIRS
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 7:43 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Space for serials growth

An article of note on this topic is:

Sapp, Gregg and George Suttle. A method for measuring collection
expansion rates and shelf space capacities. Journal of Academic
Librarianship 20, no. 4, 1994.

  The input on this thread matches Sapp & Suttle's approach, with the
important difference that they chose to count each 36" shelf as 28" of
usable shelf space capacity. It is important to choose a shelf space
capacity number that gives you some leeway. For instance, you don't
slice a 3" thick bound volume in two to fit on two shelves, so 2" might
remain empty. Many other things can occur to throw off exact
measurement, but counting a shelf as 28" instead of 36" gives you the
wiggle room to accommodate variations.

Steve Black
Reference, Serials, and Instruction Librarian
The College of Saint Rose
392 Western Avenue
Albany, NY 12203-1419
blacks@strose.edu
(518)458-5494