Subject:  Re: inventory in periodicals -- Susan Shelly
From:  Linda Grooms <lgrooms@stetson.edu>
Date:  Tue, 08 Apr 2003 11:40:27 -0400

Each of our periodicals student assistants is responsible for a section
of our periodical collection. At the beginning of each semester I print
a report of periodical holdings for each of these sections that the
assistants use while shelf-reading. They note any differences between
the report and what they see on the shelves. At the end of the semester
I collect all the shelf-reading guides and check to see if the items
marked as missing are still missing. If so, I update our holdings. This
provides a continuous inventory.

At 10:46 AM 4/8/2003 -0400, you wrote:
Subject:  inventory in periodicals
From:  Susan Shelly <susancs@goshen.edu>
Date:  Tue, 08 Apr 2003 09:16:16 -0500

One and all:
Still feeling new to Serials/Periodicals, I'd like to know how and/or if
you do yearly inventory of periodicals and microforms.

Our current system here is to mark all our received microforms in
inventory notebooks, but since they basically are a repeat (or should be
a repeat) of what is in the catalog, I don't see the point.  When I
discuss getting rid of the inventory books, I am asked, "but how will we
take inventory?"

It seems to me a report generated from the catalog could be checked
against what is truly on the shelves instead of keeping a second set of
books, but am I missing something here?

*******************************
Susan C. Shelly
Librarian, Serials and Services
Good Library
GOSHEN COLLEGE
1700 South Main Street
Goshen, Indiana 46526
574.535.7637

Linda Grooms
Periodicals Supervisor
lgrooms@stetson.edu