Date: Fri, 02 May 1997 17:10:27 -0400
From: DAVE MURPHY <MURPHY@SMTP.MUNET.EDU>
Subject: Periodical Budgeting (Sallie Alger) -Reply

I'm not sure, when you say, "departments"  what you mean.

We too have one budget for periodicals and that's all we buy from
that budget.  It is administered by the serials librarian and that
person communicates with our jobber and publishers.  If you mean that
your director would allocate some of this budget to academic
departments, to make their choices, no, that's a really bad idea.
You want continuation in your periodical titles.  A title should have
the opportunity to grow and develop, both as a publication and
through a pattern of usage in your institution.  By effectively
giving the decision-making power to academic departments, you risk
fragmenting your collection, producing short runs and promoting a
lack of consistency.

Dave Murphy
Madonna University