5 messages, 125 lines:

(1)--------------------------
Date:         Fri, 15 Nov 1996 14:39:33 -0500
From:         Annalisa Van Avery <AV691@CNSVAX.ALBANY.EDU>
Subject:      Page numbers on spine of bound volumes: results

        I want to say "Thanks so much!" to all the people who answered
my question about page numbers on the spines of bound volumes.  Besides
the ones you have already seen in Serialst, many e-mailed me personally.

        Out of the 45 messages I received so far, 40 were favorable
to using page numbers and 5 were negative or doubtful of its usefulness.
Of the positive answers, most saying that they did put page numbers on
spines and that patrons liked it very much, 25 were science or medical
libraries or college/university libraries who did it on science/medical
journals only.  Eleven college/university libraries do it, and 3 law
libraries.  I also received one encouraging note from a member of the
Library of Congress.

        The negative answers had some interesting points of view also.
One pointed out that what my professor called the "standard way of expressing
references" is really dependent on the citation style, which does vary
in different indexes and journals.  One person felt that it has a great
opportunity for mistakes.  One said they stopped doing it, and no one
noticed.

        Now I have to confer with my colleagues and decide what to do.
Oh, in case some of you are wondering, everyone who says they use page
numbers only do so on journals which page consecutively throughout the
volume, and the volumes are large enough to be bound in several parts.
Obviously it isn't necessary when the volume is bound in one piece, and
doesn't make sense if each each issue starts with page 1.

        Thanks again to everyone who responded!   Annalisa Van Avery

(2)--------------------------
Date:         Thu, 14 Nov 1996 17:40:18 -0500
From:         "Kathryn A. Soupiset" <KSOUPISE@TRINITY.EDU>
Organization: Trinity University
Subject:      Re: Page numbers on spine of bound volumes

We have recently started adding page numbers to the spines of
selected chemistry titles, at the request of the Chemistry Dept. and
the Science Librarian.  Our binder does not charge extra for this,
but we have had some problems getting the binder to put the
information in the right place on the spine.  They were mixing us up
with another one of their accounts.

This has been a little extra work for our bindery staff, but once the
records are set up, it is not that much effort.  We try to provide
service for our students and faculty to aid their research.  I was
interested to hear the other replies on this topic.

****************      **************     **************
Kathryn Soupiset, Head, Acq. Dept., Maddux Library
Trinity University, 715 Stadium Dr., San Antonio, TX 78212
Office: 210-736-7613 Fax: 210-735-3342
ksoupise@trinity.edu
****************      **************     **************

(3)--------------------------
Date:         Fri, 15 Nov 1996 09:22:49 CST
From:         Shawn R King <srking@NOCTRL.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Page numbers on spine of bound volumes

     I have noticed that the American Chemical Society titles are sometimes
     cited by volume and page only.  I am not sure which indexing service
     does this but it can be confusing.  We just recently switched from
     fiche to bound retention of these titles.  The fiche gave indication
     of the page numbering.  This is something I will have to consider in
     our binding process as well.

     Shawn King

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shawn King, Serials Librarian           North Central College
srking@noctrl.edu                       Oesterle Library
(630)637-5712                           Naperville, IL  60540
----------------------------------------------------------------------

(4)--------------------------
Date:         Fri, 15 Nov 1996 15:11:02 -0600
From:         "Anne C. Bunting" <ABUNTING@AM.UTMEM.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Page numbers on spine of bound volumes

We have been using page numbers on the spine of certain titles for years  I
just went to the stacks to see if there was a pattern as to when we use issue
numbers or pages.

We put the pages on the spine of J Biological Chemistry, Biochemistry,
Biological and Chemical Abstracts. These also are bound in many volumes.  It
does make them easier to use.

We are a health sciences library but we seem to mainly do this for the science
or chemical titles.

Anne C. Bunting
University of Tennessee, Memphis
abunting@utmem1.utmem.edu

(5)---------------------------
Date:         Fri, 15 Nov 1996 11:30:08 -0500
From:         Kristine Smets <KSMETS@IMF.ORG>
Subject:      Page numbers on spine of bound volumes - reply

This is one of my husband's (who is a physicist)  pet peeves about
academic libraries.  According to him, in physics and chemistry all
references are made to pages, not issues, and he hates having to pull
down four different volumes to find the pages he needs.   I have told him
many times to talk to the librarians at his institution about this but he is
shy and also believes they will not take suggestions from a post-doctoral
student seriously (just wait till he's on the faculty :).

His other recurring complaint is that academic libraries across the
country do not classify the books in certain areas in a uniform way.  He
keeps finding them in different class schemes as he moves from one
institution to another. I have tried to explain to him (with some success)
the reasons why libraries may choose to vary from the prescribed LC
classification.

Kristine Smets
Cataloger
Joint Bank/Fund Library
ksmets@imf.org