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Here are the messages I received regarding my questions regarding=20 periodicals for high schools. Please note that one excellent periodical that was not named by anyone=20 was CQ Researcher. It comes out twice a month and is a very useful reserac= h=20 source because of the timeliness of the topics!=20 Check out the CQ gopher for sample articles and an offer for a free=20 sample of CQ Researcher.=20 Gail Szeliga UEHSLIB1@transit.nyser.net ----------------------------------------------------------------- From: emclane@int1.mhrcc.org Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals I have not renewed Redbook because of its explicit articles promoted every month on the cover. We do not get Glamour or Mademoiselle. We do get Seventeen and Teen which are very popular. I have added computer magazines and Young Sisters and Brothers and Games magazine for recreational reading. I still get the weekly news magazines because of their timeliness and the graphics and charts which are not in the computer databases. But we too will have to evaluate at budget time this year. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From: KayM830175@aol.com Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals When I acquired MAS Full Text Elite, I decided to no longer subscribe to print copies of those publications used mainly for research. I maintained print subscriptions to Time, Newsweek , U.S. News and similar publications = as well as titles popular with teens for browsing purposes. (I don't expect them to browse MAS.) I think I take a rather liberal attitude and choose not to make a big deal = of articles and pictures that are more salacious than anything else. My students are nearing adulthood and I choose not to be too censorious; however, if that type of material is all that the publication has going for it I choose not to purchase it. I think you must make the choice based on your knowledge of your students, your community and your budget. Any of it choose not to purchase it. I think you must make the choice based on your knowledge of your students, your community and your budget. Any of these can be deciding factors. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Anne Oelke <acoelke@peoples.net> Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals We subscribe to Infotrac-SuperTom so between the fulltext & fiche, we have access to many periodicals. I did drop several periodicals because of that= . If they were only used for "research" not pleasure reading or current reading, we dropped them. Yes, Glamour & Mademoiselle have been a bit ??? lately, and we'll probably end up dropping them. Some issues we simply did not put out. At least Deer & Deer Hunting, Sports Afield etc do not give u= s those problems. Wish Hot Rod et al would drop their swimsuit issues. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bonnie Mong <bmong@neptune.esc.k12.in.us> Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals I am interested in your HIT on this subject, when I dropped subscriptions because we were spending more than our allowable periodical budget on the databases and periodical subscriptions, taking most of it from our book budget, people complained that we didn't have any magazines. That we didn't have many books didn't seem to be as important. So I'm back= to ordering as many magazines as I can, sometimes using fund raisers and fine money for this purpose after my budgets in all the other areas are depleted= . Since we are a required study hall based library (students not assigned to the library, but coming down each period), they like to look through magazines. This looking at pictures in magazines is a part of being *friendly*. Students who do not have study halls are in the majority and they are the ones who use magazines for the research papers . Sometimes teachers bring in magazines and we get undeliverable ones from the post office. We are not networked and do not have full-text articles, or fiche indexes available on all computers, so we are limited as= to how many students can be on at once. We do have back issues of magazines, but of course the year that I dropped all of the subscriptions are empty. = We do have a list of magazines that we have so that the students at the Reader= s Guide can tell. We also have a list of the public library magazines. We have 2200 students in one county high school 9-12. Two male teachers objected to GQ's articles, so I dropped that, wondering if they ever looked= at Glamour and Mademoiselle. I agree that the lead stories are provocative fo= r teenagers. If we have them, then we condone what's in them.? We have the news mags, computer, Hot Rod, Four Wheeler, Mad, Teen, etc. (I don't have the list at home.) But as you can see these are mostly recreational. Before Newsbank and Infotrac, we had Vital Speeches, New Yorker, Atlantic, etc. BTW, our local college does donate mostly recreational. Before Newsbank and Infotrac, we had Vital Speeches, New Yorker, Atlantic, etc. BTW, our local college does donate l2 subscriptions= to the high school. It's through a plan that I get to choose off a list, but = not everything I would like is available, so I do get some that I probably wouldn't otherwise. I think libraries in the future will have lots of computer and internet inf= o for nonfiction and information gathering, with fiction books in paperback. I'm uncertain that we need as many books for research when more up-to-date info can be found in monthly updates from these services. However I think book count will still be important to people who don't understand what we'r= e doing, but we still won't be funded for enough. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Pope <popeda@heidelberg-emh2.army.mil> Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals We have dropped most magazines except for recreational reading. We have gone from a high of over 100 to now around 30 subs. We put our money where the use is: MAS,TOM, CD-NEWSBANk, SIRS, etc. We try to get Time and Newsweek, and a computer title or two: rest goes to fun. We are a Blue Ribbon HS with 9-12, 700 kids. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Levin <d-levin@bgu.edu> Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals >How are you handling your periodical orders after acquiring a full text >periodical databates? When I came on-board as the Media Center Director, I cut the periodical=20 subscriptions in half from the 70 my predecessor had been subscribing to through a jobber. We then tried out full text CD-ROM subscriptions (EBSCO and UMI) side by side for students and faculty members to compare and contrast. UMI's ProQuest Resource One won hands down! With their 140 titles (100 of which are full text), I found that keeping only 35 subscriptions of very popular serious and/or credible titles (i.e. Time. Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, etc.), the hard-to-stop-subscribing-t= o titles (i.e National Geographic, New Yorker, etc.), and the bubblegum-for-the-brain titles (i.e. People, Teen, etc.) kept most people happy. (Reading pixels on a screen is not always enjoyable.) Go with your students' and teachers' preferences. Look at what has been in demand (which may be easy to do if you have an automated library circulation system to check the statistics). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------= - From: Joyce Conklin <jconkli@smcoe-ns.ed.co.sanmateo.ca.us> Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals We cut our hard copy bill from $1500 to $500 (approx. values) when we got InfoTrac and back fiche (and that's not even full text on CD). We keep Business Week (it's not on fiche, altho' it's indexed on the CD), Nat'l Geo, the news magazines (Time, Newsweek, USN&WR) Sports Illus.etc. (I can send you our complete list if you'd like) I find that our juniors use Glamour, Seventeen etc. when they're doing their controversial issue essay assignment and have chosen abortion or adoption or similar topics. My biggest problem with content was the cover of the Arts and Entertainment section of the SF Chron. a couple of weeks ago -- a picture from "Showgirls" which might as well have been full frontal nudity! I put it on a 'stick' as usual and then turned it around so the picture didn't show! Not a censor, just a prude! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kmv_patton@MEC.OHIO.GOV Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals We also have been thinking hard about dropping magazines in our library. This year we cancelled Glamour and GQ (really inappropriate articles in nearly every issue), Astronomy, and even Scientific American (with regret, = but it wasn't used much at all). We get WilsonDisc Reader's Guide Abstracts, which I really like, because it is retrospective to 1988, while CD NewsBank is only current. We also get Reader's Guide in print, and I try to keep the back issues of magazines we subscribe to for at least 5 years. By subscribing to magazines which students are likely to want in full text after accessing the abstracts in WilsonDisc or Reader's Guide, I hope to provide the greatest amount of information for the least cost.r However, I really is going to take some fine tuning to accomplish this. This year I'll be looking for more magazines which are used little for reports, and weighing the cost benefit ratio of keeping them. --------------------------------------- From: ROGERSP@citadel.edu Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals Would appreciate a copy of your answers. I too have concern about the old standard periodicals and especially their "lead" story hookers on the front= of the publications. Redbook did how to satisfy your mate in bed as one of th= eir cover stories ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: STEWMANJ@dqhs.k12.ar.us Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals As a high school of 450 students in southwest Arkansas, we carry about 30 subscriptions of magazines. So far, on CD-Rom we have SIRS and Time Almanac a magazine sources. I am very interested in any responses you might receive, since I'm fairly new in high school-- I've spent most of my career in elementary library while awaiting a high school opening. Most of our boys here like Hot Rod, Popular Mechanics, and anything to do with hunting. The girls like Seventeen, Glamour, Sassy, and others of that ilk. We take Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, and Time. Anyway, please post a hit if you get any good responses. The last time I sent a message, everyone on the line received it. I hope I've corrected that. If not, someone let me know. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Donna Ruth Dahlstrom <rdahl@tenet.edu> Subject: hs library magazines I am a hs librarian in a small (500 students) library. We went to cd-rom databases last year and are completing a whole building network sometime this year (we hope). Most of my teachers were very supportive, as I had to make some tough decisions regarding magazine subscriptions. In order to afford info-trac I cut roughly 2/3 of my hard copy periodicals. The only complaint came from a history/govt/eco teacher who is without doubt the dinosaur on the faculty. Over the last 25 years he had grown used to the notion that the magazines he reads are his own personal subscriptions, to the extent that he robs the library mailbox before we have the opportunity of even checking in and labeling periodicals. I felt that I afforded a realistic he robs the library mailbox before we have the opportunity of even checking in and labeling periodicals. I felt that I afforded a realistic compromise in that I continued _TIME_ (even tho it is full-text on infotrac), our city/county library subscribes to _NEWSWEEK_, and it is readily available to him, and _USNEWS_ is also full text on infotrac. He remains impossible to deal with, and I just go on my way, trying to help his students, as he no longer even attempts to bring them to the LRC for help on assignments. He has no intention of ever allowing a class time of orientation/instruction on the databases. Go figure. I'm sure I sound very sanctimonious, but I do feel badly that his students must prepare a presentation in economics for a huge amount of their semester grade and the sum total of their instruction seems to be "do a presentation". In downsizing the periodical hard copy budget, I concentrated most on what I term "fluff" magazines--the mags the kids want to carry out--keeping some 26 titles. 14 of these are things like SI, People, YM, Cycle world--you get the picture. Others Consumer reports, clearing house, current history, etc. We also receive 9 gift subscriptions from a Technical School in Victoria , TX.--the "big city" down the road in return for displaying the gift mags in their mag holders. All of these are kid-friendly. I think this was a viable compromise. So did everyone except the dinosaur. --------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Elaine Patterson, Media Specialist, GFHS" <FAY_ACA_EP@nwoca.ohio.gov= > Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals I will be very interested to hear what other people are doing because I am wondering about what to do also. I have Infotrac and I am more interested = in discontinuing things that only get used for research..but what if the compu= ter goes down? We are a really small school with likewise budget. I too am concerned about lead articles. Some covers just about say steal t= his magazine! When the cover is too much, it just doesn't go out. Please post= a hit. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: KAY PAHL <PEHS_LIB@noeca.ohio.gov> Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals I have deleted a large portion of what I used to order. You mentioned Glam= or and Madam. . .they have become trash. I do not use "taxpayer's" money to p= ur- chase what the students can buy at the drug store.. I have discontinued periodicals that sort of duplicate each other--House and Garden/Better Hom= es & Garden. I have more closely tied the magazines to the curriculum. The recreational reading now represents the school sports.. .Swimmer's World, Runner's World and (because we live on the lake) Sailing, Skiing. You get the idea. We also have SIRS on-line and a couple others. We maintain the Time, Life, U.S. News and World Report for student projects. We have reall= y cut our collection to the bare bones. Good LUck with your decisions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Margaret Devine Sloan <madsloan@tenet.edu> Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals I am currently completing my periodical order. Having suffered a 37% budget cut for this year, I can't justify the selection previously provided. I am looking first at the interests of our student population then at patterns of use, and also at periodicals that are indexed on our CD sources but not full text. I am trying to keep a good selection of recreational magazines as I am trying to encourage students to come to the library. Some of these are Bride,Car & Driver, Jet, Ebony, Essence, Seventeen, PC Novice, GQ....I'm also keeping the major news magazines, scie= nce periodicals etc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cathy Pfahl <Cathy@COMM.BE.WEDNET.EDU> Subject: Re: HS periodicals 1. I began using Ebsco's MAS Full Text Elite this year. Formerly, I subscribed to 50-60 periodicals in print. I have dropped 75%, at least, of my print subscriptions this year, because of the CDROM subscriptions. I spent a few sleepless nights pondering the wisdom of this giant leap into t= he new format, and I feel very comfortable with it. So far, teachers and students do also. 2 & 3. Yes, I have been concerned about the content/overt messages of the popular teen magazines, especially the ones aimed at girls, for quite a while. They seem to do nothing to promote positive self image for girls except as it relates to attractiveness to boys (e.g., Seventeen, Teen). Th= is year I have dropped both of those and am trying Sassy. Haven't decided yet if it is better. 4. Even with the Ebsco CDROM subscriptions, I have decided to keep getting the 3 major news magazines (Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report), because the CDROM articles are a month behind. I felt it was important to have the current week's issue available for staff and students. I am also getting a few of the old favorite "browser" magazines (e.g. Four Wheel, Skiing, Sassy), for library use only. I will be very interested in hearing what other people have to say. You ha= ve posed a good question. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: KCROGERS@aol.com Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals We continued paper copies of only the magazines that were used for browsing= , that were essential for research, the pictures were so superb we couldn't n= ot have them, a few mags that were indexed ,but not full-text, and a few that = we deemed essential to have in case the system went down. some of the titles = we get are the 3 big U. S. news magazines, Life, Glamour, Seventeen, Hot Rod, Motor Trend, Rolling Stone,People, Ebony, Nat. Geographic, Reader's Digest, plus a few local ones. Yes, I am concerned about topics in mags such as Glamor, Rolling Stone, and even Seventeen. I'll be interested in your hit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "S. Peckham" <speckham@creighton.edu> Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals I significantly changed my periodical orders after I had MAS and SIRS for research purposes. Magazines are ordered primarily for recreationa= l reading. Being a Catholic Girl's High School, I order a lot of Fashion and women's sports and health magazines. I change subscription frequently--no longer concerned with keeping consistent back-up years. As far as the fashion magazines, I feel some are geared to a high school audience and others to a college one. I do not order Mademoiselle or Glamour. I mainly ask the girls what they like to read and I purchase those magazines for them.It is wonderful that the CD ROMs free?1c up more money for the purchase of more rec magazines. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: LEE GORDON <lgordon@nevada.edu> Subject: Re: SEC:>High School Periodicals When we acquired our CD periodical source (UMI Resource One Select Full-Tex= t), I had to cancel some of our paper subscriptions. I chose the ones that they kids rarely read that were included in Resource One--Commentary, Nation, Business Week, etc. I kept the popular subs with color pictures--SI, Seventeen, Car & Driver, and the weekly news mags. I only subscribe to about 45 mags now. I, too , had some doubts recently about Glamour's content, and as much as I am opposed to censorship, I took this opportunity to cancel a few subs for mags that I thought had lost the curriculum relationship I look for. I also cancelled all prof. journals (except 2 for the library), citing high cost and asked the depts. to order their own. Some of the prof. mags weren't read by any one for more than 2 years. The money we saved on the subs went toward the cost of Resource One, as our budget remained the same. In order to see what mags were actually being read, for one month, I asked students to initial the paper attached to the plastic display cover whenever they stopped to read one. At the end of the month, I did a quick tally, and threw away the tally sheets for privacy. Some even wrote me notes--"Please, I LOVE this magazine." Lee Gordon Eldorado HS Las Vegas, NV lgordon@nevada.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Donna Ruth Dahlstrom <rdahl@tenet.edu> Subject: Re: HIT:>HS Periodicals since my kids seem to focus on problem areas, Sports Illus has had some athletics/drugs focus stories, and is a popular reference mag. Ladies Home J also does some bulimia/anorexia stories as does 17. Those are as close as any I could name. With the addition of Infotrac TOM, SIRS on cd, and Front Page News, I will be very surprised to see much checkout of hard copy magazines or SIRS articles. Hence, my dropping those titles and going to more "fluff" titles, which also include SI, LHJ, and 17. =CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD= =CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD= =CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD=CD MAGAZINE SURVEY RESULTS QUESTION #1 >1. What three hard copy magazines (excluding the major news > magazines, Time, Newsweek and US News) are most useful to > your student's research needs. ANSWERS #1 3 magazines most used for research---Science, National Geographic, Sports Illus. Business Week, Phi Delta Kappan, and Current SI, LHJ, 17 National Geographic, Natural History, Seventeen (articles about social issues of interest to teens) Students use magazines required by classroom teachers: Psychology Today -Psychology classes America - liberal Catholic magazine-students are required to read articles Vandidades - required reading for Spanish classes > Business Week, Sports Illustrated (lots of info when researching drugs and sports, etc.), ?? No hard copy magazines (outside of the major weekly news magazines) serve m= y students' research needs, now that I have switched to CDROM periodical sources. Hard copy magazines most useful for research needs: We have a relatively large collection for students to choose from and what = we don't have we can borrow from neighboring libraries by interlibrary loan vi= a fax. Some of the more popular ones include: a.) Maclean's b.) Sports Illustrated (mostly by young males) c.) USA Today (magazine, not newspaper) QUESTION #2 2. List five magazines that your students enjoy for recreational reading? Any unusual titles? I am looking for some new ideas. ANSWERS #2 People Weekly, Teen, Essence, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, PC Magazin= e Nothing really unusual. Budget doesn't allow much experimentation. Teen, 17, SI, Cycle world, Four Wheeler Ebony, Car & Driver, Sports Illus., YSB (young sisters and brothers), Cycle= , NOTE: I am an all girl's Catholic High school in a conservative state. sorry, there is nothing unusual or exciting here. Students read fashion magazines all the time (YA, Vogue, Seventeen, Sassy, Allure, People, NOTE: Because I am no longer concerned with keeping a consistent set of bac= k copies, I order new magazines all the time, try out ones the students bring me and cancel anything they are not reading. This allows a lot of flexibility and change for what is stocked in the library. Car and Driver, Field and Stream, Pop. Sci., Pop. Mech.; used to have an aide (she opted to take a librarian job in another school!) who brought in Tennis, Skiing, etc. Five recreational reading print magazines: FOUR WHEEL, SNOWBOARDING, SKATEBOARDING, ERES (Spanish), PEOPLE, SASSY 5 magazines most read---Sports Illus., Four Wheeler, Road & Track, Seventee= n, Cycle World a.) Rolling Stone b.) Wrestling USA (we have a number of high school wrestling enthusiasts--this is aimed at that competitor and is not the schlock seen on TV) c.) People Weekly d.) Seventeen e.) Sports Illustrated QUESTION #3 3. What periodical database do you use? Is it in print or a database? Doe= s it include all full text, citations and abstracts, or citations only? D= o you use microfiche? Are you happy with it? ANSWERS #3 3. Periodical index: NewsBank full text CD, print vol., & microfiche Readers Guide print Infotrac microfiche, citations and abstracts I don't know if you'd include SIRS Full text CD & print binders in this, but it's the database most used. The kids naturally like the full text info best because we don't charge for copies and they don't have to search for fiche. Use InfoTrac for magazines, NewsBank for newspapers. Up to now, have ability to use only citations, not full text, but we're in the process of installing enough CD drives to shift. I've used fiche and if I had the option, I would remain with that, cuz I think it pushes the kids to do some more critical thinking instead of just printing everything there is! I like everything about fiche except re-filing! The kids figure out quickly how to use it. I have Full Text Elite for Ebsco's MAS (136 full text magazines and 500 with just abstracts. I also have SIRS which includes full text. I will be looking into ordering PAIS when it comes out in March, and also Matter of Fact (which is very interesting -includes Statistical Abstracts). I also will be previewing the new SIRS Renaissance to provide magazine articles in the arts. I am very happy with magazines on CD and no longer subscribe to Reader's Guide. UMI's ProQuest Resource One is an excellent periodical database that carries 140 titles, 100 of which are full text. If the price is right for next year for a wide area network (as it is this year for both local area networks and wide area networks), we'll probably stick with UMI since our students are familiar with the database format. Another product that is very much worth looking at is H. W. Wilson's Readers' Guide to Periodicals-- Mega Edition. Their CD program holds about 240 titles, 100 of which are full text. This program has a very easy to us= e database format (which is essentially the same as all of the Wilsondisks-- = a terrific advantage). They have an excellent and liberal pricing structure for both local area networks and wide area networks. Use Infotrac TOM Researcher (I think) I'm at home without a label to look at. Includes full text, citations and abstracts. We are a small schoo= l 35 miles from a college town, and citations are worthless. Our kids won't go find citations. That is why a full-text database is a godsend.> > > No microfiche. Students hated using it. We also have SIRS CD-Rom which is magazine r/ newspaper reprints. Front Page News is also newspaper reprints= . We have two-- UMI's Resource One Select Full Text. It has citations, abstracts, and in many (but not all) cases full text. This source does not include Microfiche. The second is Newsbank. It provides citations and abstracts. The newspaper articles are on Microfiche. Resource one does index articles in NYTimes an= d USA Today, neither of which we have available in our library on MF--too expensive. Newsbank is our source of newspaper articles. We like the articles and have found many good things there, but the cost is getting prohibitive. Some people don't like fiche, but I find that it like the articles and have found many good things there, but the cost is getting prohibitive. Some people don't like fiche, but I find that it frees up computers for other students when the first students get the citations they need and move off to the MF readers. So instead of just 9 kids using the search stations, I can have 9 kids on the search stations and 6 on MF readers. I have SIRS, CDNewsbank, Ebsco MAS Full Text Elite. Only E-MAS has anythin= g but full-text articles. I did use Newsbank MF, but am gladly phasing out their use, now that I have the resource on CDROM. Yes, I am very happy wit= h my CDROM resources. I think I will probably drop SIRS for next year, as it is being used less than the other two resources. I kept it this year as it was the one my students first learned with, and I wanted to make the transition to the slightly more complicated E-MAS a bit easier. We still use Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature (print version) and we have Magazine Article Summaries Full-text Elite. MAS indexes approximately 400 titles and makes 125+ available in full-text. I am in my fourth year i= n this library. Since there was no microfiche or microfilm collection available, I chose to buy CD-ROM instead. I am very happy with it as are m= y students. (If there had been a fiche or film collection in place my decisi= on probably would have been to build on what was available.) =1A