Deferred binding of paperbacks

A useful reference on the subject may be "The Life expectancy of
Paperback Books in Academic libraries: a follow-up study" by Roger
Presley and Christina Landram, (from Georgia State U) in Technical
Services Quarterly v 7 n 4 1990.  The authors monitored a sample of
books over four years, and concluded "that the blanket policy of binding
paperbacks for this academic library is still not valid and is a waste
of library resources".

We were forced to end our bind-all-paperbacks policy this year due to
budget cuts, and now only bind after circulation (which is also an
indicator of future use), or some pre-selected types (glossy art books,
scores etc).  Its too early to know how the unbound books are surviving
(if not used, then probably fairly well !), but we will monitor a sample
over a few years.

Ross Coleman
Collection Management Librarian
University of Sydney Library
University of Sydney. NSW. 2006. AUSTRALIA
+61 2 692 3352
Fax: +61 2 692 2890

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 7:41
                Distributed: Thursday, November 25, 1993
                        Message Id: cdl-7-41-003
                                  ***