These answers apply to our main library:

>1. Do you keep your current periodicals in a separate place from your bound
>periodicals? All current periodicals together? Or do you shelve them mixed
>in with the bound volumes?

Until recently, issues for the current year plus 3 back years --
loose and bound -- were located in the Reading Room where microforms
are also housed.  Earlier bound volumes were intershelved in the
stacks.  We now keep only the loose issues in the Reading Room and
all bound volumes are sent directly to the stacks.  Everything is
arranged by LC call number.

>2. Approximately how many subscriptions to print journals and magazines do
>you have?

We house approx. 2,825 titles in the Reading Room.

>3. Do you eventually bind most of them or toos them?

Most are bound, very few are received in microform, some are discarded

>4. How do you shelve/display the current issues before they've been bound?
>(We currently are using hanging folders for the closed stacks. I don't
>think they will work well in open stacks.)

We have display shelving with a slanted back.  The issues lean
against the back and are held in place with a clear plexiglas
holder.  This method facilitates browsing and the issues are easy to
see, but it does have drawbacks.  Not all formats stand up well, some
tend to slide around, and oversized issues have to lay flat on the
shelf.  Newspapers are housed in shelving units that have flat
slide-out shelves.

>5. Do you restrict the use of the current periodicals to a floor or room?
>Or can they be taken anywhere in the library?

They are restricted to the Reading Room.  We do not circulate bound
or loose periodicals.

>6. Do you security strip all issues, most issues, random issues, weighted
>towards titles that more often disappear?

All issues have 2 security devices.  A "target" that works with the
radio-frequency system at the Reading Room entrance and a strip that
works with the system at the main library entrance.

Carol D. Green
Serials Librarian, Associate Professor
Subscription Manager, The Southern Quarterly
The University of Southern Mississippi
118 College Drive #5053
Hattiesburg, MS  39406-0001
601-266-4476 phone  601-266-6033 fax
Carol.Green@usm.edu
http://www.lib.usm.edu/