We have circulated periodicals to both students and faculty for several
years, and are planning on stopping all circulation in the near future.

For students, our circulation policy is 2 journals for 24 hours, with no
renewals.  Faculty can borrow up to 5, but the term is still 24 hours.

Two questions arise:
#1 if your stated purpose is to support student research/student need,
why are you giving faculty special privileges by allowing them to "see"
journals first?

#2  what assurances do you have that faculty will return periodicals
within a stated period (24-48 hours?).  If there are no policies in place
to block faculty privileges, and there is no punishment involved, how can
you know you will get your materials back?  I am not saying the faculty
cannot be trusted; generally they are overworked during the
semester/quarter, and can only keep up with the materials they are using
at that moment in time.

Out of over 1500 current periodical subscriptions, only about 50 go on
current magazine display.  As soon as we check in a journal that goes to
display, we charge it out to the user named "display".  When these are
replaced, they are available for anyone to check out.  And titles that
don't go on display are immediately ready for circulation.  We currently
have a "table of contents" program whereby faculty can request up to 5
tables of contents of any title to which we subscribe.  As soon as we
receive that title, we make a copy of the contents and send it to the
requestor.  This is a fairly popular service and very easy to implement.
Each year, the faculty is sent the list asking if they wish to renew, but
anytime during the year if they want to make changes, we just change the
notes field in the checkin.

Debbie Harrell
Ingram Library, State University of West Georgia
phone: 770-836-6498
fax: 770-836-6626
<dharrell@WESTGA.EDU>