-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:	Re: [SERIALST] question about the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue
Date:	Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:50:07 -0400
From:	Laura Secord <secord@macalester.edu>

We treat it like any other issue: date/property stamp and target.  No problems.

 

Well, lucky you.

 

We used to get leisure magazines and newspapers, but being a medical library,

we didn’t retain them permanently.  So perhaps we were less bothered by theft

than public libraries …  but plagued by it nevertheless.  I remember once a patron

asked if he could have a current newspaper to send to his sister – it contained an

article about some sports hero of hers.  I said I’d hold it for him once it was a week

old and was being withdrawn, but he argued that it might disappear before then! 

(And indeed it might have.)

 

His argument: I’m such a good person, for asking you instead of just taking it like

anyone else would, that I deserve to have the paper.  It didn’t occur to him that

removing the paper early, with or without “permission,” would deprive all the

other patrons of its content, just as much as if a thief had taken it.

 

As for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues … forget it.  Quite often we never

received them; perhaps they were intercepted by mailroom or delivery people

before they ever reached us.  When we did put them out, they disappeared as

soon as our back was turned, as did many other popular magazine issues.

 

One thing we tried for a while was marking and marring the issues ourselves,

putting our library stamp and date stamps all over any illustrations that might

tempt potential thieves.  That helped somewhat, but I felt badly about it.  And

it wouldn’t be an option for a library that retained the material permanently.

 

We no longer subscribe to leisure reading material, thank goodness.  Too bad,

because the patrons enjoyed it … but it’s not really in our scope.

 

This librarianship business does sometimes damage one’s faith in humanity. 

SW

 

Susan Wishnetsky

Galter Health Sciences Library

Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University

303 East Chicago Avenue

Chicago, Illinois  60611

Phone: 312-503-9351  | FAX 312-503-2678

E-mail: pasiphae@northwestern.edu

Hello!