3 messages, 139 lines:
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Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 10:02:55 -0400
From: "Jamie A. Hastreiter" <hastreja@ACASUN.ECKERD.EDU>
Subject: Re: classified periodicals
In-Reply-To: <9410141350.AA29851@triton.eckerd.edu> from "Eva Friesen" at Oct
14, 94 09:34:01 am
Hi.
Our journals have been cataloged since the school began 35 years
ago. They are shelved in a separate section labelled "Periodical Stacks"
Current issues can be shelved in a "Display" area (alphabetical
arrangement for the newest six months of the most heavily used and popular
journals) or in the stacks next to the bound volumes (by call number). If
we store the title on microfilm, we will still keep a few years of the
loose issues in the stacks, next to the block that tells users that it is
stored permanently on microfilm. When we remove the periodicals from the
display area they are shelved by call number in the stacks. I think it is
much easier to have only one sequence for shelving. It allows people to
view the complete range of holdings in one place. We get enough confusion
with the use of the display area. Journals do not circulate.
--
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Jamie Hastreiter email hastreja@eckerd.edu
Serials/Technical Services Coordinator phone (813) 864-8336
Eckerd College Library Fax (813) 864-8997
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Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 10:54:49 -0600
From: "Rebecca H. Stankowski" <rhs@NWI.CALUMET.PURDUE.EDU>
Subject: Re: classified periodicals
In message Fri, 14 Oct 1994 09:34:01 EST,
Eva Friesen <efriesen@ACS.RYERSON.CA> writes:
> Until now, our periodical collection has been uncatalogued and shelved
> alphabetically. We are now about to catalog the collection and are
> seriously considering classifying them. The plan is to then arrange them
> in call number order in two separate sequences, one for back issues and
> the other for current issues, both seuqences being on the same floor.
> They will not circulate.
Well, good luck to you.
We have a collection of about 110,000 bound volumes (we currently have about
1600 subscriptions). They were always cataloged, but we used to shelve them
in alphabetical order by title. This arrangement always caused problems:
what to tell people who asked, "Where are the Nursing journals?" -- how to
explain to student shelvers that Atlantic -- Atlantic Monthly -- Atlantic --
Atlantic Monthly couldn't be shelved in straight volume order (at least not
"correctly" shelved) -- how to easily explain that well, yes, it WAS _Iron
Age_, but now it's _Chilton's Iron Age_ and it's shelved way over there...
I'm sure you have the same problems and concerns. So we decided to classify
and shift all of the bound collection in one big fell swoop. We ended up
hiring a temporary part time (.5 FTE) clerical employee to handle the
physical processing of the volumes and the changes to the cards (this was
back in the "olden" days five years ago when we still had cards to change)
and the Public Services staff had the headaches of constantly re-shifting
the collection as we switched from an alphabetic to classed arrangement.
The whole project took about 18 months. Now we shelve all of the bound
journals together on one side of the Library in class order. We briefly
considered intershelving them with the monographic collection, but dismissed
the idea because we didn't have enough shelving available (the monographic
stacks have the shleves closer together and most of the bound journals
wouldn't fit -- so we'd have to move the shelves farther apart, making less
shelves per section, making not-enough-room-for-everything.)
To complicate matters, however, we still shelve all of the current unbound
journals in alphabetical order in a separate section (just as we used to
do). We found that unbound titles are used more for browsing than research
(since they've not been indexed yet) and people are looking for titles to
read rather than articles to use for research.
Are we happy we did it? I think so, for the most part. It solved the
litany of problems that I mention above, but it created an extra step in the
patrons' search -- not only do they have to look in an index to find a
citation and then figure out if we own the title -- they also have to note
the call number before going out to the stacks. (I'll admit that _I_ found
that bit frustrating myself for a while.) But over all, the advantages of
classification outweigh the problems.
Just be prepared for a bigger project than you expect. Somehow they tend to
grow like Topsy (at least ours did).
BTW, all of our periodicals DO circulate (we ended up keeping that
temporary .5 FTE clerical position to help in barcoding when we automated),
but that's another discussion...
Good luck!
Rebecca House Stankowski
Technical Services Librarian
Purdue University Calumet
Hammond, Indiana 46323-2590
rhs@nwi.calumet.purdue.edu
219.989.2435 Fax: 219.989.2770
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Date: Fri, 14 Oct 1994 12:05:33 -0400
From: JUDITH HOPKINS AT SUNY BUFFALO <ULCJH@UBVMS.BITNET>
Organization: University at Buffalo
Subject: Re: classified periodicals
Several years ago Central Technical Services of the University
at Buffalo classified all the periodicals in the General Libraries;
this included titles in the Lockwood Library [humanities and social
sciences research library], the Science and Engineering Library, and
the Undergraduate Library plus a few small branches. We had over
12,000 current subscriptions plus many more no-longer received titles.
The titles had always been cataloged but previous to this they were
arranged in alphabetical order according to main entry (usually title).
The bound classified periodicals in each library are in a separate
shelving sequence from the monographs (the call number is preceded
by the abbreviation PER to indicate in which shelving sequence a
periodical volume is to be shelved). CTS would have preferred to
integrate them with the monographs but the public services staff
preferred the separate sequence.
Unbound current issues are currently in a current periodical room
or area in each library. They are arranged alphabetically by title
but the call number is given on the shelf label for each title so that
users can go directly from a current issue to the appropriate stack
section without having to go first to the catalog to look up the
call number if they want to examine the bound back issues of a title.
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Judith Hopkins 716 - 645-2796 (phone)
Technical Services Research and Analysis Officer 716 - 645-5955 (FAX)
Lockwood Library Building
University at Buffalo ULCJH@UBVM (BITNET)
Buffalo, NY 14260-2200 ULCJH@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (Internet)
Listowner of AUTOCAT@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU
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