implementing the unthinkable: the demise of periodical check-in at the university of nevada

Implementing the unthinkable: the demise of periodicalcheck-in at the University of Nevada

Rick Andersona,*, Steven D. Zinkb

aDirector of Resource Acquisition, University of Nevada, Reno Libraries, 1664 N. Virginia Street,Reno, NV 89557, USA

bVice President for Information Technology and Dean of Libraries, University of Nevada, Reno, 1664 N.Virginia Street, Reno, NV 89557, USA

Abstract

Librarians generally assume that serial check-in is an essential function. The authors challenge thisassumption, maintaining that the practice does not stand up to thoughtful scrutiny. The check-inprocess does make possible such practices as routine claiming, binding, and the tracking of title andfrequency changes, but many of these ancillary functions do little to help library patrons gain accessto journal content; the functions can be accomplished by other, less time-intensive means. The authorsbelieve that in the vast majority of cases, staff time currently devoted to check-in could be much moreeffectively utilized and patrons better served if check-in were eliminated in favor of a much moreabbreviated and pragmatic process. Librarians at the University of Nevada, Reno, have conducted ayear-long experiment in eliminating serial check-in, and found that doing so enabled them toreallocate staff time in ways that significantly enhance patron access to serial content without anyappreciable negative impact on patron access to print issues. © 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rightsreserved.

Keywords: Serials; Journals; Check-in; Binding; Claiming; Splits; Mergers; Frequency; Document delivery

1. Introduction

The shift in scholarly publishing from print to online formats is no longer news. Norshould anyone be surprised by the enthusiasm with which scholars and students in mostacademic disciplines have greeted this migration. Where once scholarly journals were

* Corresponding author. Tel.: �1-775-784-6500 (x273).E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Anderson).

Pergamon

Library Collections, Acquisitions,& Technical Services 27 (2003) 61–71

1464-9055/03/$ – see front matter © 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/S1464-9055(02)00309-3

represented by print issues that sat on shelves in a single campus location, were oftenpublished erratically, and were searchable (if at all) only by means of paper indexes or, morerecently, cumbersome CD-ROMs, they are increasingly available in fully searchable onlineformats that allow researchers to find, display and print the full texts of relevant articlesquickly and without leaving their offices or homes. While some librarians have found reasonsto object to such a development, few information seekers have responded with more than apassing pang of nostalgia.

While dramatic changes in the way information is created and distributed have led tofundamental shifts in patron behavior, libraries—especially academic libraries—still tend toapproach many of their activities in traditional ways. Not everything must be done differentlyin the wake of the revolutionary effects of the Internet, but given the fundamental impact ofnew information technology, it is essential that existing practices be critically evaluated.How do today’s patrons use online catalogs? (Do they, for that matter, use them at all?) Whatleads patrons to use one type of resource over another? Are libraries providing services thatare getting little or no use? Are librarians feverishly working to control and manageinformation that is not of use to anyone? Are there information services that patrons want andthat libraries are not providing? If so, why?

Finding answers to such questions is not always easy. A willingness to be flexible andexperiment is required, as is an ability to put oneself mentally in the shoes of someone whohas little or no formal library training or experience. Nor will an honest attempt to answersuch questions always be gladly received by those whose work might be affected by theanswers. In this emerging post-Gutenberg era, however, it is difficult to see how any librarycan remain relevant and useful to its patrons without going through such a process ofreflection. It is time for librarians, as information professionals, to accept the fact that manyof the issues and concerns that have absorbed so much time and energy in the past are nolonger so important today.

In that spirit, library managers at the University of Nevada, Reno are questioning some oftheir fundamental assumptions, and sometimes coming up with surprising answers. At thesuggestion of Steven D. Zink, Vice President for Information Technology and Dean ofLibraries, the Serials Department at Nevada took a close look at its processing priorities and,in particular, at the process of journal check-in. Zink suggested that journal check-in mightbe a waste of time and effort. After the initial shock of that suggestion wore off, RickAnderson, then Electronic Resources and Serials Coordinator, gradually came to the sameconclusion. This article outlines the considerations that led to that conclusion, what wasdone, and the results.

2. Literature review

The necessity of the check-in process has yet to be questioned in print. There has beensome discussion of process itself in the library literature, however, and some of theseexaminations suggest that questions about the real utility of check-in are overdue.

In the government documents arena, the check-in process can be relatively simple.Depositories are not required to catalog documents, and claiming is generated as a result of

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missing items received in a shipment against a packing list. Given that various estimates ofthe serial nature of government publications have frequently exceeded 70% of all govern-ment material received, government documents librarians long ago often settled for atitle-level inventory, which implies a more rudimentary check-in process [1]. Both MargaretT. Mooney [2] and Myrtle Smith Bolner [3] have discussed ways in which technologicaldevelopments over the last decade have made it possible to automate that process to somedegree.

Technology has somewhat eased the check-in burden for academic and public librariansas well. In a 1993 article in Serials Librarian, Marcella C. Lesher described how SISACbarcodes make it possible to replace some of the keying involved in check-in with barcodescanning [4] (though this approach obviously does nothing to eliminate any of the follow-upwork engendered by the traditional check-in process). During that same year, the sheerphysical drudgery of serial check-in was the subject of grim humor elsewhere in the libraryliterature [5]. While the unpleasantness of a task is surely not reason enough to eliminate it,the drudgery adds one more reason to question the task’s necessity.

Complexity is added to the process when libraries are decentralized, as Basil W. Sozanskymakes clear in a rather rueful article in Serials Librarian titled “Mission Control, Do YouRead Us?: Decentralizing Serials Check-in in an Automated Environment” [6]. The same istrue when libraries automate. Converting from a manual to an automated process forcheck-in, even for a relatively small subset of the collection, can be a months-long projectrequiring thousands of hours of labor, as Judith M. Shelton makes clear in a 1991 article [7].Again, complexity and labor-intensity are not sufficient reasons to abandon a process if theprocess is necessary. They are, however, sufficient reason to question its necessity.

Approaches to check-in vary somewhat by type of library. Small and underfundedlibraries may not be able to afford integrated library systems (or the modules that must beadded for automated check-in). Mark Horan of the library at Pennsylvania State UniversityWilkes-Barre reports in a 2000 article for Serials Review that the serials staff successfullydesigned a check-in system based on a Microsoft Access database when faced with just suchconstraints [8]. At the other end of the size (and funding) spectrum, the LC found it necessaryto develop a completely homemade system in order to manage its 180,000 subscriptions andstanding orders (and the 7,000 serial items received each day because of them), as well as alocally-devised holdings format to replace the MARC holdings format, which was deemedinsufficiently robust for the needs of the LC [9]. At the end of her account of this process,author Claudia Houk McNellis makes a telling comment: “The optimum level of detail in aserials system is . . . less than the more compulsive of us might imagine. Serials are a poorcandidate for nail-it-to-the-wall processing” [10].

Laura Peritore was even more prescient of the authors’ thinking in a 1989 article in TheReference Librarian on the role of serial check-in data within the OPAC display [11].Comparing survey responses from reference librarians at three academic libraries, Peritorefound that many elements that might be displayed in a check-in record actually confuse ormislead patrons [12]. Despite such potential confusion, Peritore found that reference librar-ians were enthusiastic overall about the utility of providing general check-in information inthe OPAC display. Patron enthusiasm remains an open question.

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3. Why check in journals?

The correct response to the question “Why not stop checking in journals?” is anotherquestion: “Why have we been checking in journals?” The answers to that question comeeasily. Traditionally, check-in has:

● recorded whether an issue has arrived;● provided a means to monitor changes in publication frequency and pattern;● assisted in the detection of title changes, splits and mergers;● driven routine claiming of missing issues; and● served as a management mechanism for binding processes.

If these processes are important, and if check-in is key to these processes, then it follows thatcheck-in is important. The next question to be answered, then, is whether these processes areimportant. The automatic response is an affirmative one, but upon reflection, the answers arenot so obvious. Indeed, a fundamental problem is that librarians rarely ask such questions.

4. Status vs. availability

When it comes to the status of current issues, the question of whether the library hasreceived a new journal or magazine issue is not central to most patrons’ concerns. Whatmatters is whether the issue is available—immediately. A check-in record indicating that theissue has been received tells the patron nothing about whether the issue is available for use(i.e., in its place on the shelf) at any given moment. Of course, if it is not on the shelf thereis nothing the check-in record can do to help the patron or librarian locate it. It may be 10feet away in the hands of another patron, or squirreled away in a faculty carrel, or incorrectlyshelved, or lost, or stolen. The status of an issue may be helpful to librarians who need toknow whether it should be claimed (a matter addressed below), but it is of minimalusefulness to patrons. Any status other than “right here, right now” does little to help thepatron who is right here, right now.

5. Frequency

Check-in does allow the serials staff to monitor publication patterns. Moreover, it isdifficult to imagine a process other than routine check-in that would allow serials staff tokeep track of those patterns and changes.

This begs an important question: so what? As difficult as it may be for professionalserialists to accept, the simple fact is that catching and documenting a journal’s change frommonthly to quarterly publication does little to enhance access. While it is possible, with someeffort, to conceive of a situation in which the lack of that information might hinder a patron’sresearch efforts, the likelihood of such a situation arising is so remote that it cannot justifythe amount of time and effort required to prevent it. This will become even less of a factor


in the future as journals move increasingly into online formats. Frequency will quicklydecrease in significance—in many cases, it will cease to be a factor at all.

6. Title changes, splits and mergers

Unlike frequency changes, title changes pose some potential difficulties for those in searchof journal content. When the Journal of Elbow Studies changes its name to Joint TissueResearch Quarterly, that may merit the notice of library patrons.

In this instance, however, the likely impact of not locally recording the change is minimal.A patron with an accurate citation in hand will also have the citation to the relevant versionof the journal title. A patron searching a database will be led to articles based on her searchstrategy, not the title of the journal. Patrons sometimes limit their searches by journal title,but those who do so will be searching a commercial database. The lack of a title change inthe library catalog will not hinder or impede access to the article. On the library side of theissue, the traditional check-in process does nothing, in itself, to inform serials staff of titlechanges. The check-in clerk must recognize that he is looking at a title to which the librarydoes not subscribe and then do the necessary research to determine that title’s provenance.As noted below, there are ways of handling this process that do not involve routinelychecking in all journal issues.

7. Claiming

Traditionally, one of the most important functions of check-in is the generation of routineclaims for journal issues that are late or missing. Many libraries have automated systems thatgenerate these claims automatically; in other libraries, clerks or librarians perform the dutymanually. Either way, claiming can represent a tremendous amount of work and expense onthe part of libraries, publishers and vendors. Success in claiming is notoriously low,particularly for scholarly publications, which by their very nature often have erratic pub-lishing schedules.

Without check-in, routine or automated claiming is clearly impossible. This begs animportant question: is such claiming needed? To answer this question, one must ask whatwould happen if claiming stopped. To answer that question, one can perform a quickmathematical calculation:

1. Take the total number of serial items received in an average year, and subtract thenumber of items that arrive without incident or delay. (According to receipt andclaiming statistics kept at the University of Nevada, approximately 85% of all expectedperiodical, serial, newspaper and microform materials arrive on time and do not needto be claimed [13]. For the purposes of this exercise, this statistic is considered typical.)

2. Subtract from the remaining 15% the number of issues that would have arrived whetherclaimed or not—journals that were delayed in the editorial process, in publication or inshipment


3. From the remaining number, subtract those issues the library will never receiveregardless of how many claims the institution submits

The number that remains represents those journal issues that arrive due to claiming activity.Obviously, claiming itself results in the actual delivery of far fewer issues than a casualexamination would suggest, and the impact of routine claiming on most patrons’ ability toaccess journal literature is relatively small. It is also worth noting that routine claims—particularly those generated by an automated system—can result in numerous duplicateissues. At Nevada, the serials staff reports a dramatic decline in receipt of duplicate issuessince routine claiming ceased. This effect is especially noteworthy in the case of standingorders.

One objection to doing away with routine claiming is that without it, publishers andvendors will have little incentive to provide journal issues in a consistent and timely manner.This objection arises from at least two erroneous assumptions, however. The first suchassumption is that claiming makes a significant difference in results. The authors address thatassumption above. A second assumption is that publishers and vendors have a financialincentive to withhold or delay issues. While this second assumption has some surfacevalidity, it falls apart under closer scrutiny. Certainly, publishers and vendors (like libraries)have a short-term financial incentive to ignore problems of all kinds. However, a companythat goes to the trouble of either publishing or distributing a journal has little incentive towithhold copies of any given issue from its paying customers.

Even if the above reasons for claiming were valid, it would still be necessary to examineclaiming in the larger context of serials management, which includes the management ofonline journals as well as print subscriptions. Every argument in favor of claiming printjournals is an argument in favor of doing the same for online journals. (In the online context,of course, claiming would mean confirming timely and complete access rather than trackingtimely physical receipt.) Such routine tracking of all journals in all formats would beimpossible for the great majority of libraries. Obviously, practices such as claiming shouldnot be implemented based on format; they should be implemented based on their potentialimpact on patrons. The University of Nevada subscribes to approximately 15,000 journals,of which the library receives only 2,700 in print form. Print journals, as a whole, get verylittle use—about .5 reshelvings per issue—and one suspects that use will continue to declinein favor of electronic access. Use of online journals, however, is high. If claiming isnecessary, does it really make sense to claim the least-used 20% of the journal collection?If librarians wish to make an argument for claiming, a better one would be for monitoringthe “receipt” of those journals that are most heavily used.

8. Binding

Binding older issues of print journals is, with rare exceptions, a matter of providingexcellent protection to materials that need little, if any, protection. Binding is tremendouslyexpensive in terms of staff time and involves significant direct costs as well. Moreover, anannoying side effect of routine binding is that it takes whole journal volumes away from


potential users for what may be weeks at a time. Better alternatives exist, as are explainedbelow.

9. Is check-in worth the trouble?

Check-in may offer some benefits, but those minimal benefits require examination in lightof their costs. Perhaps even more important are the opportunity costs—the lost chance to doother things with the time and effort that check-in requires.

Given that check-in primarily provides for the close management of information that is notterribly useful to patrons, library managers at the University of Nevada dispensed with thecheck-in process. The University Libraries replaced the process with one that is quicker andintentionally less exacting in managing the print serial collection, thus allowing staff to focuson management of the online journal and database collection.

10. What do we do instead?

When the administration of the University of Nevada Libraries first decided to stop routinecheck-in for most print journals, it was clear that some process would be required todiscriminate between those journals that have an established place in the collection and thosethat do not. The initial plan was to use the open Current Periodicals stacks as the mechanismfor that discrimination—send all newly arrived print issues out to the stacks, shelve those thathad a designated place and return those that did not have a location on the shelves to theSerials Department, where staff would investigate further.

However, sending all issues received to the Current Periodicals stacks would meanapplying security strips and property stamps to everything, even sample issues and unsolic-ited copies that the library will ultimately discard. The initial solution was to create a list ofall print subscriptions, alphabetically arranged in a binder; student employees would com-pare each issue to the list, processing those that matched and leaving the remainder for theclerk to examine. Staff would route samples and other items not on the list to bins. As thosebins began to fill, the Serials staff would notify the library’s subject specialists, inviting themto come and identify items of interest. After two weeks, all remaining samples would bediscarded.

This process was too labor-intensive. In consultation with the Circulation Department—which reported an extremely low incidence of patrons trying to walk through the securitygates with current journal issues, and an even lower incidence of patrons doing so withscholarly journals (as opposed to popular magazines)—Serials cut the procedure evenfurther. Now only a very selective list of high-use titles, mainly popular magazines, isprocessed for security. The shelving students simply compare all other titles to titles in theCurrent Periodicals stacks. Student shelvers return those titles without a place in the stacksto the department. A clerk performs a quick check to identify title changes, splits or mergers;remaining titles are routed into the bins of sample issues.


11. Claiming

The University Libraries no longer perform routine claiming, except for high-use/high-cost titles [14]. Student workers now have much more time to spend in the CurrentPeriodicals stacks, keeping the collection neat and organized and watching for obvious gapsin coverage and notifying the staff of those gaps so that they can consider claiming. Whilethis may appear to be cavalier as measured against traditional practices, the unquestionedcontinuation of traditional claiming practices is indefensible in light of the considerationsenumerated above. Claiming has always been a process that is difficult to justify if examinedfrom a cost/benefit perspective; Nevada has simply abandoned the practice except in caseswhere cost and benefit will clearly be in closer balance.

Some will maintain that such a procedure is sloppy, and that it risks missing problems withprint subscriptions. However, perfection in this area of processing would not be possibleeven with unlimited resources. Clearly, the cost of catching a small number of relativelyinsignificant problems is extraordinarily high, and those costs directly undermine the li-brary’s ability to provide real services to patrons. With a journal collection of over 15,000titles and a small serials staff, patron-centered efficiency is paramount. Priorities for infor-mation management in the information age should not be determined by format; patron needmust be paramount. Spending less time claiming rarely-used print journals has freed up asignificant amount of staff time for the management of heavily-used online journals anddatabases.

12. Binding

While Nevada binds a few high-use, fragile and graphics-intensive titles (which arguablyneed the protection offered by case binding), the vast majority of older print journal andmagazine issues are now housed in plastic boxes in the main stacks. A staff member createsan item record for each box and labels it with a call number and volume number. Shelversmove issues into the boxes as their spaces in the shelves become crowded. As the pile of NewYorkers gets high, students move a boxful of older issues from their place in CurrentPeriodicals to a box in the main book stacks. The item record indicates which issues belongin that box. In keeping with the conclusions outlined above, the question of whether a boxcontains a full year’s run of any journal is of little concern (issues received or found later caneasily be added to an existing box). A label indicating its call number and volume numberidentifies each issue, thus giving it a “home” box that the reshelving staff can easily identify.

13. Document delivery

Simultaneously with discussions regarding the abandonment of journal check-in, theUniversity Libraries initiated a more efficient and patron-centered document delivery andILL service. The Libraries stopped charging Nevada students and employees any fees fordocument delivery, and established a free on-campus delivery service. With check-in, the


tacit message to patrons had been “You’re looking for an article in the June issue of theAtlantic? Yes, that issue has been checked in. Go look on the shelves, and if it isn’t there,try again later.” The message now is “You’re looking for an article in the June issue of theAtlantic? It should be in the Current Periodicals stacks. Check there, and if it isn’t availableat the moment, the University will get a copy of the article for you in about 24 hours at nocharge. Would you like it delivered to your campus address in print form (again, at nocharge), or would you like to be notified when you can retrieve it on the Web?”

14. Results at Nevada

Some library faculty and staff undertook these procedural changes with considerabletrepidation. In recognition of those concerns, the Libraries implemented the changes as anexperiment, with the understanding that if it proved disastrous the Libraries would return tothe status quo. One year after implementing the new procedures it is quite clear they havebeen an unqualified success.

14.1. Patron reaction

Patrons have reacted to the cessation of periodical check-in with oblivious silence. Mosthad no idea that check-in records existed. Presumably, those who use the print journalcollection appreciate how quickly journals appear in the Current Periodicals stacks. Initially,some library staff were concerned that patrons might object when they could no longer seea check-in record in the OPAC indicating the most recently received issue of a journal. Thoseconcerns, it appears, were based on incorrect assumptions about patron behavior. There havebeen few, if any, such complaints. Possible explanations include:

● the serials display in the local integrated system is far too complex and poorlyorganized for the majority of patrons to understand;

● even those patrons who did look at the check-in box understood that it was not aniron-clad assurance of any particular issue’s availability at any given time

A valuable by-product of doing away with check-in has been that reference librarians arenow more likely to walk with patrons the short distance to the Current Periodicals shelvesto help them find what they need. If the desired materials are missing, the librarian is in agood position to guide the patron to Document Delivery and explain how the service works.

14.2. Reshelving

Another concern was that putting unbound journal issues in boxes would greatly add to theburden on reshelvers working in the main stacks. Again, this fear has not been borne out bya year of experience. The usage levels for most bound journals have traditionally been quitelow. The move from binding to shelved boxes has not changed that, and usage remains verylow for unbound ones. The growing number of electronically-accessible journals is reducing


use of older print issues even further. The reshelving staff reports that they rarely have torebox old journal issues and that the impact on their workflows has been negligible.

14.3. Speed to stacks

One of the happiest consequences of eliminating check-in has been the increased speedwith which new issues find their way into patrons’ hands. Traditionally, the time it took fora new periodical to get from the mail desk to the Current Periodicals stacks could be as longas 48 hours (or longer, in the case of a “problem” such as a frequency change or a surprisesupplement). Today, issues that arrive in the morning are almost always on the shelf by thatafternoon. This offers more value to patrons than the scrupulous reflection of a journal’severy quirk of publication pattern in the online catalog.

14.4. “At the bindery” no more

Of significant benefit to library patrons is that entire journal volumes are no longer sentto the bindery every month, rendering them unavailable for weeks at a time. Once a journalissue arrives, it stays.

14.5. Bindery savings

The monetary savings from ceasing routine binding has been substantial. Binding wascosting the main library roughly $20,000 per year; boxing costs less than $4,000. So far, theamount of work involved in boxing is about the same as with binding. Eliminating check-in,however, has freed up substantial staff time for use elsewhere in the department.

14.6. Shifting focus

Eliminating check-in has allowed the libraries to redirect 75% of one full-time libraryassistant’s work from check-in management, claiming and “problem issue” follow-up toe-journal and database management, including such activities as:

● Setting up “free-with-print” access to online journals;● Following up on “no access” reports and other problems with e-journals and databases;● Performing clerical duties related to online access (faxing licenses, submitting IP

ranges, etc.);● Establishing correct URLs and configuring local MARC fields.

15. Conclusions

In a time when libraries must constantly undertake new activities in response to rapidtechnological change, the opportunity to stop any activity is welcome. This experiment hasbeen a clear success. The sky has not fallen due to the occasional missed frequency change


or unclaimed late issue. The Serials Department still catches most important anomalies liketitle changes and splits, and patrons receive better service now than before. Most importantly,the Libraries have recovered time and energy from the close management of low-useresources to be used in the better management of high-use ones. While there may beinstitutions where this approach would not work, Nevada’s successful experience shouldprompt a long-overdue examination of numerous traditional library processes in a post-Gutenberg information age.

References

[1] Zink, S. D. (1982). Government publications as serials. In: N. J. Melin (Ed.), The serials collection:organization and administration (p. 115). Ann Arbor, MI: Pierian Press.

[2] Mooney, M. T. (1994). Depository processing made easy: a one keystroke automated check-in system forU.S. government documents. Documents to the People, 22, 211–2.

[3] Bolner, M. S. (1995). Online processing of government documents: an overview. Documents to the People,23, 131–4.

[4] Lesher, M. C. (1993). Check-in with the SISAC symbol (bar code): implementation and uses for libraries,publishers and automation vendors. Serials Librarian, 23, 249–51.

[5] Katzman, M. (1993). The check-in war. Wilson Library Bulletin, 67, 57.[6] Sozansky, B. W. (1991). Mission control, do you read us? decentralizing serials check-in in an automated

environment. Serials Librarian, 19, 227–9.[7] Shelton, J. M. (1991). The continuations saga: converting non-periodical serials. Serials Librarian, 21,

153–6.[8] Horan, M. (2000). Building a serials check-in datafile using Microsoft Access and paper check-in principles.

Serials Review, 26, 22–42.[9] McNellis, C. H. (1996). A serial pattern scheme for a value-based predictive check-in system. Serials

Review, 22, 1–11.[10] McNellis, p. 11.[11] Peritore, L. (1989). Public access to serials check-in information and its impact on reference services.

Reference Librarian, 27/28, 17–37.[12] Peritore, p. 33.[13] According to statistics kept during fiscal years 1999 and 2000, items checked in during a typical quarter

totaled approximately 12,500, while claims during a typical quarter totaled approximately 2,200. Many ofthe latter are second and third claims for the same item. Thus, an estimate that 85% of serial issues arriveon time is conservative indeed.

[14] High-use/high-cost titles are rare in the Nevada libraries’ collections, as they tend to be in most institutions’.While there are many high-cost/low-use titles and many low cost/high-use titles, few are high in both costand use.
