Rochelle,

At one library I worked at, the patrons were asked not to re-shelve the
periodicals they looked at. Instead, they were directed to put them on a
re-shelving cart instead. On the cart was a clipboard with a list of all
the titles, and the circulation staff would put tally marks next to the
title for every issue on the cart before they re-shelved them. The
papers on the clipboard were gathered up quarterly and the tally marks
were counted and input into a database.

As with any system, it's not perfect, but it seemed to work pretty well.
You just have to watch out for patrons who try to be helpful by
re-shelving the items instead of putting them on the cart.

Leslie R Boyter
Serials Specialist
Washington State Library
lboyter@secstate.wa.gov
360-704-5220

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Rochelle Van Erem
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 11:29 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] Tracking usage of non-circulating periodicals

        At my institution, we do not circulate our journals and they are
not
        barcoded. Could someone provide some ways to track usage?
        We are considering the idea of wrapping them in paper and then
        counting
        broken seals at a later date; has anyone tried that method?

        It sounds messy. Could someone suggest something better?

        Thanks,

        Rochelle Van Erem
        Serials
        St. Norbert College Library
        100 Grant Street
        De Pere, WI 54115 USA
        phone (920) 403-3270
        fax (920) 403-4079

--

Thanks,

Rochelle Van Erem
Serials Specialist
St. Norbert College Library
100 Grant Street
De Pere, WI  54115 USA
phone (920) 403-3270
fax (920) 403-4079