LM_NET: Library Media Networking
Dear LM_NET'ers,
Thank you for your response to my question on Magazine access. Here
are the results and some of your thoughtful comments. The idea on color
coding is great.
Of the 40 locations responded to the question about having magazines
accessible to students in the main reading room:
18 have tried it and would not recommend it
11 have not tried it and would not try it
9 locations are doing it and think it is worthwhile
2 have not tried but are interested
Your comments:
**********************************************************************
Hi-We found that if you use your collection for research purposes that
free access does not work. You will come up with too many missing or
damaged issues. It is so fustrating for a student to search and find
the perfect article for a paper and go to pull it and have it missing
or torn out of the magazine. Good luck.
***********************************************************************
David--I would not do it. I was "asked" to give up my magazine storage
room to make it into an office. I think the magazines have suffered
from being gone through by the students. They really think that they
are doing us a favor by getting their own magazines. However, they
have no clue about order. Julie B.
Julie Burwinkel-Librarian
Ursuline Academy of Cincinnati
***************************************************************************
David,
I think that you would be creating a nightmare that would make the Ebola
virus look like the common cold. We have closed stacks that very few
student aides have access to and we still find misfiled magazines. With
totally open access, your chances of being able to find things in a very
short time span, will be greatly reduced. So will the number of magazines.
Good luck !
Clete Schirra schirrac@icarus.lis.pitt.edu
South Park High School Media Center
****************************************************************************
Be prepared to lose magazines. After a summer construction project, I'm
enjoying my 1st year with restricted access to the back issues. It is
making an enormous difference, not only in the magazine actually *being*
there when needed, but also being filed where it should be. The students
now fill out a magazine request slip, w/ title, date, etc., & an aide or
I pull the magazine. I would never willingly go back to open access.
Suzanne Franklin, District Librarian e-mail : suzannef@tenet.edu
*****************************************************************************
Dear David, We have found that if we allow students to get their own
magazines, they simply do not return them to their rightful spots. And
information you can't find is information not availabe--it's poor
service. Don't do it. Edna Boardman, Minot, ND boardman@sendit.nodak.edu
****************************************************************************
We have moved all of our back isues out to the main library. We are 9-12
with about 400 kids. Lost issues are not any greater than when they were
in the back room. Damaged issues are not any greater either. The kids
have appreciated being to access the magazines themselves and are often
used as time fillers for those students who nothing else to do.
Sandi Jordet
Brush CO Home of the Beetdiggers
sjordet@csn.net
*****************************************************************************
David,
I have not tried this method because of potential material loss and damage.
Additionally, the time to put things back in order again after students go
through them would be far more time consuming than the time to retrieve them
initially. Periodicals that are several years old get very little use in my
high school now that we have full text service network in the adjacent lab
and in the library. Please post a hit; I'd be curious if others from the
public school will be advocates of such a move. Perhaps the private school
sector has a better situation than we do.
*****************************************************************************
We're a high school with 950 kids. We allow free access to our
magazines and while we've lost some, it's been nowhere near the
amount I was afraid of, so we're still allowing access. It
saves an IMMENSE amount of staff time.
Sandra Parks
sparks@pen.k12.va.us
Harrisonburg High School
****************************************************************************
Comrade David:
We put all magazines out in the reading area, except for a few
which lose pages, etc. (Rolling Stone, Sports Il, Ym, etc.). We do put
security sensors in them to keep the whole magazine from leaving. We are
happy with the system. For the ones kept behind the desk, we photocopy
the cover of the issue and put that in the magazine binder so the
students know it is available. A note on them refers patrons to the desk.
^^ Bruce J. Nelson
^^ Library Director
^^ Evergreen Park H.S. email nelsonb@sls.lib.il.us
****************************************************************************
David,
Never ever give students free access to magazines--they walk off big-
time and you won't be able to keep them in order.
A hint for quick/easy access by you and/or your assistants:
For 15 years I've color coded my stored magazines. We keep only 3-5
years of most magazines other than National Geographic, Am. History
Ill., and Am. Heritage, but I rotate colors in the same order every 7
years: red, yellow, brown, blue, orange, black, green; then red,
yellow...again.
I color stripe a page of book labels and write the year (blue stripe
and 96 this year) just below the stripe; these are kept with magazine
inventory cards. I write month (and day if appropriate) on a label,
install it near the top of the magazine "spine," and cover it with
"magic" type tape to protect it. Students then know this magazine
will be in storage when they read the current issue.
I also color code the magazine boxes in storage. You can quickly
tell if a magazine is in the wrong box and can find the correct one
quickly when you have requests in hand--no searching all over the
covers to find the dates! Also easier to reshelve correctly.
Janet Hofstetter, librarian
California High School email: jsr001@mail.connect.more.net
****************************************************************************
Our magazines are open access and they are a CONSTANT mess - never filed
right, never filed at all, whole boxes dumped on the floor, etc. At the
moment I just don't have enough assistance in the library to do it any
other way, but would dearly love to do something - anything - differently.
Sarah Giddings
sarahg@avalon.nando.net
St. Timothy's Middle/Hale High
Raleigh NC
****************************************************************************
We store our back issues much the same way Janet Hoffstetter does.
Students must fill out a form to get copies from the Periodicals Room. Only
our library staff is allowed in that room, so it stays in excellent order.
We keep our back issues in plastic bins (Gaylord), and the color coding
screams a warning if an issue is out of place. Students may check out two
magazines (in a barcoded manilla envelope) for five days. We have very
little trouble with the system. We feel we are offering an alternative to
excessive copying and printing from EBSCO when we allow magazines to be
checked out.
Amanda L. Byrd, LMS
T.L. Hanna High School LMC
Anderson, SC 29621 E-mail: abyrd@carol.net
****************************************************************************
I'm the librarian at an 8-12 high school with 900 plus students. I have had
my back issues "behind the desk" for many years now and have never
regretted my decision. Since all of these magazines are indexed they are
too valuable (as in highly used and especially irreplaceable) a resource
not to protect. Students are the ones who are frustrated when the issue
they need has gone missing.
Here is the way I manage my periodicals. Students use the periodical index
to find the articles that they want. They consult a list (laminated for
durability) to determine that we have the magazine then fill out a slip
(Student's name, Title of periodical, Date of periodical, Pages) and give
it to me. I get the magazine for them and keep the slip as a reminder as to
who has the periodical. This makes finding the periodicals and retrieving
them from the student a breeze.
It does take time, but it too valuable a resource to let be slowly eroded.
Sylvia
P.S. A fellow librarian in the district had his periodicals available to
the students for many years but recently moved them behind the desk for the
very reasons I've given.
Sylvia Jacquard
sjacquar@fox.nstn.ca
****************************************************************************
Because of staffing, I have used both techniques. The teacher part of me
loved the students having access and finding all sorts of information, the
librarian, however, suggests strongly that a closed are is preferred. Why?
When students have access, the magazines are always out of order (I mean :
really out of order!), get ripped up or ripped off (we cut down on this with
a photocopier close by, but even that didn't stop it), we spent considerable
extra money to purchase the princeton files and then had to add extra shelf
space because of it. Frankly, as librarian, I think putting the back issues
out in the open is to simply encourage the attitude of periodicals for
leisure and not for research. But, as a teacher......
While on the subject, have you read of the experiment in Houston whereby the
schools all got together and designed a cooperative collection, each school
having a core plus a few extra titles. With that in mind, they could fax
the other schools for copies of articles required? Might be worth looking
into (see the School Library Journal for the article)
Earl Sande (Brent School Manila)
==========================================================================
Again, Thanks for your help. I have decided to keep the magazines in the
back room and color code them. :-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David W. Anderson
Information Curriculum Specialist
Thornton Academy Library
438 Main St.
Saco, ME 04072
207-282-3361
FAX 282-3508
LM_NET
Archive Home