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Current issues display area -summary Joan Kammerer 28 Mar 1996 22:27 UTC

Subject:  Current issues display area

Dear SERIALSTers,

Thanks to all of you who have responded to this question.  To
date, I have received 18 replies: 14 from the United States
                                   2 from Australia
                                   1 from Norway
                                   1 from Canada

The following summarizes the responses.

The majority of respondents do provide some type of browsability
for current issues ranging from the day's receipts to a weeks
worth at a time.

Generally speaking, the shelves of choice are the slanted type
that lift up and have space underneath for previous issues.

There are various methods to identify the issues that are housed
in the browsing area, e.g. coloured dots for each day of the
week, plastic covers, labels stapled to the cover, etc.

Most institutions use the daily receipts system where the issues
that came in last Monday are removed from the browse shelves and
replaced by the issues received this Monday and so on.

Those libraries that display the issues for a week at a time vary
in the arrangement, i.e. all titles fully classed and catalogued
and shelved that way, alphabetically by title, alphabetically by
subject in fairly crude groupings.

Some locations indicate that a print out of the receipts is
produced and posted for use and that this is well received by
their clientele.

Most sites recognized that providing this service is labour
intensive but the positive feedback from users makes it cost
effective.   Those library's that maintain a browsing area for
their entire current issues collection subscribe to generally
less than 1,000 titles.  The library's that subscribe to more
than this number provide a browsing area for only a select number
of titles.

I should mention that of the 18 responses, three indicate that
with their current staffing levels there is no way they could
support this type of service.

        ~~jk
--
Joan Kammerer                                (519) 679-2111 Ext. 6369
Inventory Control                            E-mail  kammerer@lib.uwo.ca
Allyn and Betty Taylor Library               FAX     (519) 661-3435
Natural Sciences Centre
University of Western Ontario
LONDON, Ontario
N6A 5B7