ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 1068 / C&RL News INNOVATIONS Automatic circulation o f new journal issues By David M. Lane Biological Sciences Branch Librarian University o f N ew H ampshire Francis Hallahan Library Assistant University o f N ew H ampshire and Constance Stone Library Associate University o f N ew H ampshire O f th e many ways libraries have used to provide cu rren t awareness services to users, one o f th e most com m on is routing or circulation o f new journal issues. Tom W hitehall, in his overview o f British cu rren t awareness services, refers to two m ethods o f journal circulation as th e “pass th e p arcel” m ethod and th e “ballgam e” technique (Practical C u rre n t A w a ren ess Services F rom L ib ra ries, Gower, 1986). T he form er describes traditional routing, which suffers from th e obvious difficulty o f tracing th e w hereabouts o f individual issues. T he “ballgam e” technique alleviates th at problem by circulating issues to nam ed individuals who retu rn them to th e library, which in tu rn circulates th em to oth er individuals and so on, like th e gam e o f “toss and catch.” F or th e past 15 years or so th e Biological Sci­ ences Branch Library at th e University o f New H am pshire has been automatically circulating new journal issues to faculty who have req u ested th e service. The service is called “Special C irculation” because the one-week loan period is th e same as the regular circulation period for periodicals. Over 65 faculty m em bers are currently involved in the program which circulates (through cam pus mail) every issue of over 290 titles, or about 7,000 issues p er year. Issues of Current Contents and selected printed indexes are also circulated. In term s o f m arket p en etratio n , th e service reaches every d ep artm en t in th e college served by th e branch b u t one. W ith th e exception o f the largest d epartm ent, th e participation rate p e r d e ­ p a rtm e n t averages 50%. Several o th e r d e p a rt­ m ents and research units across cam pus also have participants despite th e fact th a t little organized prom otion o f th e service has ever b een carried out. Over th e years a set o f policies and practices evolved to ensure th e sm ooth flow o f new issues through th e program . This set o f rules was first w ritten down only about th re e years ago. T he focus o f this p ap er is to describe and briefly discuss the w ritten guidelines th a t have w orked in this situation and th a t probably will work in o th er situations. Every faculty m e m b er in te re ste d in Special C irculation receives a copy o f th e following guide­ lines before he or she enters th e program: Guidelines for special circulation of new journal issues 1. All new issues o f research journals are p u t on display for two weeks before entering th e Special (autom atic) C irculation program . Issues on display do not circulate. December 1 9 9 0 / 1069 2. Special C irculation is available to faculty members only. It is not intended for graduate students or staff m em bers. 3. Service is initiated at the faculty m em ber’s request. 4. Faculty in th e program m ust confirm the titles to be circulated to them at the beginning o f each semester and th e sum m er session by responding to a letter sent to them at those times. 5. Issues o f all journals circulate for one week. 6. Faculty will be sent overdue notices weekly. With the th ird notice all Special Circulation will be temporarily suspended until the overdue issue is returned. Any tim e after th e th ird notice faculty can be billed for th e overdue issue at the cost o f replacem ent plus a $5.00 service charge. 7. W hen m ore than one faculty m em ber has requested th e same title, priority is given to those with the best record o f returning issues. 8. No m ore than th ree issues o f one title are sent to any individual faculty m em ber. No subsequent issue o f that title will be sent until one o f the previous issues is returned. 9. The maximum n u m b er o f titles on any individ­ ual faculty m em ber’s list is 30. 10. Only unbound issues (not bound volumes) will be mailed. Titles which have bound current issues (i.e., Journal o f Physiology) will be placed on “Hold” at the Main desk and a notice will be sent. These bound items will be held for 1 w eek and will be signed out in th e regular m anner for journals. It is hoped th a t some or all o f these guidelines will be o f help to those developing similar current awareness services. However, a few additional notes and com m ents are in order. Originally, new journal issues w ere on display for one week. The display period was extended at the request o f the dean and Executive C om m ittee of the College o f Life Sciences and Agriculture which the branch serves. Issues checked in over a two- week period are batched to g eth er for display the following two weeks. T he display is changed every other Monday morning. Issues to be circulated under the program which are m arked at check-in according to flagged Kardex cards are th en sepa­ rated for processing. Some issues are retu rn ed with routing slips at­ tached. A pparently some faculty m em bers “subcir­ culate” th eir issues to graduate students. This is allowed as long as the tim e limits are observed. Although sending a confirm atory le tter to all participants th ree tim es p e r year is labor intensive, the benefits o f allowing faculty to review th eir titles regularly and o f inform ing us about planned tim e away from cam pus are substantial. This practice reduces th e problem o f issues being sent to an empty office. Suspending faculty who fail to retu rn any one issue w ithin th ree weeks provides a nonm onetary penalty that is entirely within the control o f the library. On this campus, fines and bills are handled by university adm inistrative offices and provide little leverage. This provision reassures th e m ajor­ ity o f faculty who retu rn issues on tim e th at other issues are not allowed to sit on the desks o f a few faculty m em bers. Recording th e n u m b er o f overdue notices sent to individual faculty m em bers and ranking the priority o f receipt by the n u m b er o f notices sent provides an incentive to re tu rn issues quickly. Michaelson pointed out in a book review that the incentive described here has been used success­ fully in at least one oth er library (College & Re­ search Libraries 49, (N ovem ber 1987): 539-542). Admittedly, a large com m itm ent o f tim e and labor is required. A cooperative campus mail service is also essential, since issues are distributed to build­ ings across campus and to a estuarine research lab m ore than 5 miles away. Obviously, a tradition of circulating periodicals and detailed check-in and special circulation records are also necessary. T he question can be asked: Isn’t this ju st a high- cost m ethod o f routing? W e p refer to think o f it as an extended library service that brings the library to th e user with th e library bearing the cost o f im ­ proved access. T he user isn’t merely inform ed of current, and possibly useful, citations as in table of contents or online SD I services. The user doesn’t have to make a trip to the library for the actual article or make a special request for docum ent delivery. To an individual faculty m em ber this service is tantam ount to a free personal subscrip­ tion and obviously saves considerable tim e and effort. Because new issues are on display for two weeks before circulating, regular users o f the li­ brary need only check the display twice every m onth. On th e oth er hand, anyone searching for an issue th at is circulating may request that a “H old” be placed on that issue. Much o f the tim e a particular issue is involved in the program is spent in the library awaiting processing. While in th e library the issue is always available on request. About once a year someone, usually a new fac­ ulty m em ber, questions th e circulation o f new journal issues. Once it is explained that th e latest issues on display do not circulate, that Special Circulation is not routing, and that a large num ber o f faculty m em bers participate, the new faculty m em ber usually joins the program. Occasional verbal and w ritten feedback has been very positive. O ne faculty m em ber said th at he and his colleagues “cherish” the service. In considering w hether the benefits justify th e costs, th e benefits m ust be said to include the good will that accrues to the library as a result o f perform ing this service. T he question has even been raised on 10701 C&RL News this campus: W hen will o th er branch libraries be offering th e service? Since the program is similar to regular circula­ tion we hope to make use o f th e circulation com po­ n en t o f the integrated library system (LS/2000) currently being installed in the branch. This should reduce the load o f manual record keeping for the service. A P C -based database o f faculty names, campus addresses, and requested titles has already been created. F u tu re developm ent o f the service could include evaluation by means o f b rief ques­ tionnaires and w ider prom otion. Eventually, w hen m ore full text articles are available online and subscriptions to p rin ted journals decline, the old ballgame will becom e obsolete. Innovations: Allocating one-time funds on the basis o f weighted need By Rickey D. Best A rchivist and Special Collections Librarian A uburn University at M ontgomery In D ecem b er 1989, th e Auburn University at M ontgomery Library received $200,000 in o n e­ tim e money from th e University adm inistration, to be used for the purchase o f library materials. Be­ cause th e acquisitions staff is small (one profes­ sional, two paraprofessionals and two students), the influx o f these funds on top o f the allocations already m ade for th e fiscal year w ould have swamped th e unit. To prevent creating an unm anageable burden on th e acquisitions staff and to ensure th a t the available monies w ere spent as effectively as pos­ sible, th e library began examining ways to allocate the funds. Traditionally, funds w ere allocated to the teaching faculty o f th e university’s five schools (Business, Education, Liberal Arts, Nursing, and Sciences) according to a form ula which took into account the credit hour production o f each o f the schools and each o f th e departm ents within the school. Using credit hour production as the driving mechanism for dividing th e funds, however, fails to take into account th e needs o f th e various program s or differences in costs associated with m eeting those needs. In considering how to spend the new monies, two elem ents w ere needed: • a plan that would ensure the efficient and effective expenditure of resources by perm itting the library to funnel monies into those areas o f the collection showing the greatest need; and • a formula to fairly match the allocations with collection needs. After much discussion, it was determ ined that the most efficient m ethod of expending the one­ time funds was approval plans. These plans would perm it the library to acquire current materials in support o f th e university curriculum while p erm it­ ting the teaching faculty to use their allocations to purchase retrospectively. T hree vendors w ere in­ vited to make presentations: Blackwell N orth America, Baker and Taylor, and Yankee Book Peddler. Blackwell’s approval plan was chosen for breadth o f coverage, discounts, availability o f elec­ tronic ordering, and th e m anagem ent reports of­ fered. W ith a vendor selected, the library was now required to determ ine the allocations for the ap­ proval plan. T he library staff worked with Vaughn Judd, an assistant professor o f m arketing in the school o f business, to devise a form ula th at would identify the relative needs o f the collection. Before th e formula could be constructed, the collection need ed to be m easured against som e­ thing. Books f o r College Libraries, 4th ed. was selected for com parison because of its breadth of coverage and because it emphasizes the holdings of undergraduate libraries. T he form ula developed included th e n u m b er of books BCL listed for a subject, th e num ber o f books included on th e BCL list b u t missing from the library collection (based upon a sample), the percentage o f deficiency (the num ber o f books in the core list which the library lacked divided by the total n u m b er o f books for th e subject in the list), the average book cost, th e deficiency cost (num ber of books deficient ‹-› average cost p e r book) and the weighted need (deficiency cost ‹-› percentage o f d e ­ ficiency). To determ ine th e n u m b er o f books th e library lacked, th e staff began sampling th e collection. M atching the n u m b er o f titles held against the