Hello, 

In my view, the most important factor in binding resides in selecting which titles will add special value to your collection, as you all pointed out, it is an expensive process, requires storage and usage is a key factor with budgets for printed serials being cut. Thus, preservation of special and unique content justifies the investment, even if online versions are available. Going forward, I would start by having a clear policy for selecting titles worth binding. 

Our collection is mostly fashion and design. It is not the same thing looking at original Sears Catalogs or an issue of Vogue from 1926 compared to its online version. The same principle applies to the 400 current printed subscriptions: Students, faculty and industry experts like to look at the printed pages. But we do not bind all of them, we select based on the criteria listed above.

Offsite storage (as well as unused material in on-site storage areas) is a tricky issue. My take is "out of sight, out of mind," unless the statistics for storage retrieval are high and you have good support to make it work. Otherwise, it is better to be part of a consortium to administer those offsite resources, like the ReCAP (Research Collections and Preservation Consortium) initiative. 

Hope this helps,
Gabriella Bucciarelli



On Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 4:15 PM Diane Westerfield <dwesterfield@coloradocollege.edu> wrote:

We also still bind the journals that we retain. The bound journals reside in a storage facility and do see some use, though it’s primarily through ILL requests from other institutions. Our budget is healthy enough to support binding. Even when we had to cut our budget after the 2009 recession, stopping binding was never on the table.

 

Being situated in Colorado, we use Houchen for commercial binding as they are the closest sizable commercial bindery (that I’m aware of). We still send some theses for binding along with the periodicals. No binding of soft cover books, though.

 

Diane Westerfield, Electronic Resources & Serials Librarian

Colorado College, Tutt Library

diane.westerfield@coloradocollege.edu

(719) 389-6661

 

 

 

From: serialst@simplelists.com <serialst@simplelists.com> On Behalf Of Steve Oberg
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2020 9:26 AM
To: serialst@simplelists.com
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] binding issue.

 

This email originated outside Colorado College. Do not click links or attachments unless you know the content is safe.

 

I’d like to provide a different perspective from the responses I’ve read thus far. Reading them, there seems a consensus that not binding is the way to go. Although I don’t deal with managing our print serials collection any more, that group reports into me.

 

My library continues to bind journals and I am a strong proponent of doing so. This stuff is expensive, not just to purchase but to manage. We have a big investment in it. We’ve spent quite a bit of time reshaping our print journal collection to ensure we acquire content that is core to the disciplines we support. Part of our core definition is longterm preservation and access. There is no better guarantee of longterm preservation of print journals than good binding, in my view.

 

Over the last ten years our print subscriptions have deliberately been sharply reduced in favor of online access, but we still subscribe to around 300 or so print journals, and I don’t see that number going down significantly for a long time. So in part, we have reduced our binding costs that way, although they are still significant. Our bindery was recently purchased by and consolidated with a sort of conglomerate. They sharply raised prices and imposed conditions that required us to rethink the binding frequency workflow (minimum number of boxes per shipment) and so on. It’s been a pain in the neck, and I wish we had more binding options, but on their side, I’m sure they’re coping with reduced flow of materials to bind as libraries stop binding and/or switch to online.

 

Another aspect of our local situation worth mentioning is that last year, we moved our entire inventory of bound journals into remote storage. I think the total number was around 60,000 vols., and was done as a key piece of allowing us the swing/growth space to convert our entire print collection of books from Dewey to LC. As part of that process, we implemented a high quality scanner located in remote storage along with a daily workflow whereby students/staff receive article requests and can scan articles onsite for delivery through ILLiad. Good binding is a critical piece of being able to deliver high quality scans. And bound journals in storage are yes, still being used quite a bit. As we continue to add new volumes for current subscriptions, the remote storage collection continues to grow as well.

 

Hopefully this perspective gives food for thought. As with other libraries, budgets will grow increasingly tight and we may finally be forced to rob Peter to pay Paul. I don’t know.

 

Steve

 

Steve Oberg

Assistant Professor and Group Leader for Resource Description and Digital Initiatives

Buswell Library | Wheaton College (IL) | +1 (630) 752-5852

Make an appointment

 

From: <serialst@simplelists.com> on behalf of Matthew Person <mperson@mbl.edu>
Reply-To: "serialst@simplelists.com" <serialst@simplelists.com>
Date: Wednesday, February 26, 2020 at 9:25 AM
To: LeAnne Rumler <lrumler@hillsdale.edu>, "serialst@simplelists.com" <serialst@simplelists.com>, Rola Hajj <rhage@lau.edu.lb>
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] binding issue.

 

Yes...we stopped binding about 15 years ago. As LeAnne says, if your bound issues are not well used, string, nothing, magazine boxes, plastic bags, all can do the job. 

 

Good luck, Matt

 

Matthew Person

Marine Biological Laboratory

MBLWHOI Library

Technical Services Coordinator

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6478-9061

 

From: serialst@simplelists.com <serialst@simplelists.com> on behalf of LeAnne Rumler <lrumler@hillsdale.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2020 8:50 AM
To: serialst@simplelists.com <serialst@simplelists.com>
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] binding issue.

 

Hello Rola,

It may be time to do an in depth evaluation of your periodical collection and the use it is getting. Is there enough use of your bound periodicals to continue binding rather than recycling?  We found that our students and faculty rarely used most of our periodicals once we bound them and moved them to the 3rd floor. They got no use at all if there was an electronic alternative. We stopped professionally binding most of our titles and started using cardboard ‘binding’ boxes for the titles we continued to bind. Most of our titles we keep only current year on the shelf and then recycle. 

Hope this helps,

 

LeAnne Rumler

Technical Services Librarian

Mossey Library

Hillsdale College

Sent from my iPad

 

On Feb 26, 2020, at 6:33 AM, Rola Hajj <rhage@lau.edu.lb> wrote:

 

 

 

Good morning,

 This is regarding the binding process. 2018 and 2019 titles are still unbound in  our library. Therefore we are facing two controversial issues.

 

a-Binding the issues  will produce a budget problem .

 

b-Not binding the 2018 and 2019 issues and relying on economical  plastic  bags (For a package of 100 bags( size A4) the price will be $12;For a package of 100 bags( size A3) the price will be $15)  .

do you think that plastic bags are a good solution ?

Thank you for your help.

Regards,

 

 

 

Rola Hajj

Senior Serials & Electronic Resources Manager
Library - Collection Management Division

Office: +961 1 786456 ext. 2276

 

 

Beirut | Byblos | New York

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--

Gabriella Bucciarelli | Adjunct Assistant Professor | Periodicals & Electronic Resources

Goodman Resource Center | Fashion Institute of Technology | 227 West 27th Street NYC 10001 | E416

Direct: 212-217-4351 | Dept: 212 217.4380 | www.fitnyc.edu/library | gabriella_bucciarell@fitnyc.edu