Our library has gone mostly electronic for our journals, but we still have about 60 print titles for our researchers to browse.

 

To find which print journals were not being used at all, we used a method for a few years, back when we still had 150 print titles or so. Each journal that was checked in was given a dot that adhered to the right side of the journal where the pages open. It adhered to the front and back covers encompassing all the pages. So in order for someone to browse the journal they had to break the seal, so to speak. We had notices in the Browsing Area letting them know it was a tracking survey. We even made a light-hearted sign “Don’t let the dots stop you!” with some dot figures talking.

 

We chose 3 months of the year that we used the dots and did it again during a different period of 3 months the next year. This, along with other criteria, is how we determined which print issues to cancel. And that is how we whittled our collection down to 60 titles.

 

Pamela L. O'Brien

Library Technician

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Biomedical Library

262 Danny Thomas Place

Memphis, TN 38105

901-595-3389