Decentralized Serials Administration

While I’ve already posted about journals check-in, I’m wondering how other library systems with multiple library sites manage serials in general.

I work in the ‘central’ branch at a college where there are two additional branch libraries.  A few years ago the decision was made to decentralize much of the serials administration, such that subscriptions, renewals, binding, and cataloging continued to be administered by the ‘central’ library staff, but check-in was managed by the branch libraries for titles which were shelved there.

This decentralized serials administration model poses problems for claiming missing issues, updating the cataloging for title changes and mergers (etc.), updating the frequency of the publication, and collecting journal issues for binding – all among the other exciting things that the world of serials throws our way.

These problems may all become non-issues as we move progressively towards an electronic-only serials collection, but in the meantime, it is a collection management mire.

Do you work with serials in a multi-site library system?  How does your library system handle serials administration?

Checking Up on Checking In

An interesting thread developed on the SERILST listserv about eliminating periodicals check-in.

In his article ‘A sacred cow bites the dust’ (Library Journal 1 May 2002: 56), Rick Anderson, Director of Resource Acquisition of University Libraries at the University of Nevada – Reno, advocates for the “abolition of check-in” and for applying the time made newly available to the management of electronic resources.

Anderson provocatively asks,

“Is check-in really that important? For one thing, checkin allows us to tell users whether an issue has arrived, not whether it is in the stacks. It’s true that check-in allows us to monitor changes. But if a journal goes from monthly to quarterly and we don’t catch that, will it inhibit patron access? And given the extremely low usage levels of our bound journals, routine binding is nothing more than expensive and labor-intensive.”

In place of traditional periodicals check-in, the University Libraries of U. of Nevada have implemented a self-described ‘quick and relatively sloppy process’ of comparing received pieces to a list of subscriptions.  Subscription pieces are shelved in Current Periodicals; other pieces are reserved for inspection by subject specialists.

Ultimately, it appears that patron use is what motivated Anderson to reallocate staff resources and time to the management of electronic resources and away from the management of print subscriptions.

Responses on the listserv range from ‘we stopped checking in print pieces for which we have online access’ to

‘we are a state funded institution and are subject to audits, so we need to check in any pieces that we’ve paid for’ to

‘we continue to check-in subscribed pieces so that we know we’ve received what we paid for and we know what pieces we need to claim, and because our public librarians prefer that we continue to check pieces in’.

I subscribe to the latter view (pun intended) because I have the luxury of dividing responsibilities for managing electronic resources with another full-time colleague.  But with massive print subscription cancellations in my library’s future, I’m sure I’ll be reallocating my time towards electronic materials as well.

How do you manage your library’s print subscriptions?  What is your philosophy about maintaining print holdings in the OPAC?