Here at the American University in Cairo, Serials were instructed to cut
back on binding about 5 years ago when our binders suddenly raised their
prices.  Quite a few of our magazine-type subscriptions weren't bound
anyway, since we held the back file in microform.

        Two matters had to be considered: preservation and shelvability.

        Regarding preservation, there is a school of thought that says
binding = damage!  My own view is that serials, which tend to be
photocopied at least as often as read, suffer the worst damage when a
BOUND volume, its inner margin already reduced by trimming, is slapped
onto a photocopy machine and pressed down hard to flatten the gutter.
Since the BOUND volume contains several issues, its spine actually gets
assaulted more often than the spine of the single issue (which, more
flexible and with its inner margin intact, may actually be more resistant
to that kind of treatment, not less).  The British Library Document Supply
Centre doesn't bind, and its issues must get read / photocopied a lot more
than most!

        So when we were selecting titles to bind or not, we dismissed the
notion that binding was a preservative act and should be related to heavy
use.

        That left shelvability.  We chose to NOT BIND only periodicals
whose issues (a) were stocky enough to stand on a shelf without flopping
over, (b) showed the title LEGIBLY on the spine of each issue, (c)
provided that the title that showed was the same as our shelving title.
Yes, someone had to go through the current periodicals title by title,
selecting those that matched a, b and c.

        Once the list of possible NO-BINDS was made, I edited it to make
sure no two adjacent titles would be unbound - I wanted bound and unbound
alternating on the shelves, for definition and support.  I did NOT want to
use boxes, almost as expensive to have made as volumes are to bind (here,
at least) and as someone else said, easy to mis-shelve in.  But we ordered
more book-ends.

        We also added a process: stamping the fore-edges of all NO-BIND
issues with ownership marks, to reduce the ease with which they could be
smuggled out looking like personal papers. This edge-stamping also
identified titles that needn't be collected for binding, but could be
transferred out of the Current periodicals Room straight to the stacks.

        That's it.  We've added to the NO-BIND titles over the years, and
the sky hasn't fallen though I admit we haven't done an inventory, so it
may be waiting to fall.

        Lesley Tweddle
        Head, Serials
        American Univ in Cairo Library
        ltweddle@aucegypt.edu