Coping with a binding crisis

Abstract

Bailey is head of the Control Depar tment at Price Gilber t Memorial Library , Georgia Institute of Technology. In February 1986 an unforeseeable financial crisis at the Georgia Institute of Technology 's l ibrary made it necessary to divert the binding budget to other areas. Without warning, binding activities were halted. The cessation was disruptive to all departments in the l ibrary, but was most shattering to the binding unit. Emergency measures had to be taken. Longrange plans had to be made to reduce binding costs stringently. Fur thermore , at the beginning of fiscal year 1987, the unit would have to pay sixteen months of binding expenses on a twe lve -month budget which was 20 percent lower than that of the previous year. The following is a summary of both the shor t te rm measures and the longte rm planning process utilized to resolve this crisis. In a technical and engineering environment such as that at Georgia Tech, the timeliness of informat ion is of the utmost importance. Presently, the most recent sources of informat ion in scientific subjects are, other than personal communications, journal articles. It was essential that journal literature remain available to users. Consequently, the first concern was to establish and maintain control of the overf lowing periodicals shelves. Late winter is the busiest t ime of year for binding activities, since for most titles, December issues conclude the binding cycle. As the first issue of the new year arrives, the old year (or volume) is removed f rom the public unbound periodical shelves to the technical services area for preparat ion for binding. Public area shelves are rapidly filled i f the old volumes are not removed. Losses rise quickly as pieces are damaged or are permanent ly borrowed. Thus, issues had to continue to be pulled f rom