We have received an interesting request from a biology professor.
He says that when a periodical which is consecutively paged through the
whole volume or year, and voluminous enough to need binding in several
parts, we should be putting page numbers on the spines.  He says, "The
standard way of expressing references is by page number, not by the no.
of the issue within a volume.  Not having the pages available on the
outside of the binding is very disruptive -- I find myself pulling out
several bound volumes from the shelf when I need only one.  It is very
time consuming for the researcher."

        We have not been printing page numbers on the spines; we usually
use the variants as they appear on the issues -- issue numbers, months,
etc.  Some reference index/abstracts will have abst. numbers, but most
commonly it will be "no.1-6" and "no.7-12," or "Jan.-Mar.," "Apr.-June,"
etc.  I asked our bindery if many libraries used page numbers on the
spine, and they said a few do, but they are mostly medical libraries,
not the college and university libraries.

        I would be interested in hearing from other libraries -- have
your patrons been asking for page numbers?  Do you use them for multi-
part volumes?  Is this a service that would make our patrons really
happy?  I guess what I am really asking is, is this just one cranky
customer, or a genuine good idea?  It would not raise the bind price,
but of course it would create some more clerical work for the bind prep
people.
                Annalisa Van Avery
                Periodicals Cataloger and Head, Phys. Proc. & Bindery
                SUNY Albany        av691@cnsvax.albany.edu