I have been appointed chair of a committee to look at duplicate runs of
paper and microforms in our periodical collection and would like to find out
how other libraries have addressed this problem.  Because of past collection
development decisions we have approximately 250 titles with both paper and
microform current subscriptions.  In these instances we maintain BOTH
subscriptions, we do not discard the paper when the micro arrives.  My
questions are:

1) Does your library maintain (and retain!) duplicate subscriptions?  If so
what is the rationale?

2) If you have recently made a decision to cancel some titles did you cancel
the print or the microform?

3) Obviously with the time lag involved with the receipt of microform most
libraries would not be able to cancel the print subscription in favor of the
microform.  Was there some resistance in the library because in essence you
are purchasing a title only to discard shortly after?

4) With the advent of full text electronic serials have some libraries
canceled their corresponding  print subscriptions deciding the students can
access the current title online until the microform arrives in the library?

Any other helpful hints, tips etc would be greatly appreciated.  Be respond
to me directly and not to the list.  If other people express interest I will
summarize the responses for the list.

Thanks,

Molly Brennan
Acquisitions and Serials Librarian
Radford University
Radford, Virginia 24142
brennan@runet.edu

(540) 831-5692