Designing a periodical collection with the patron in mind: Serials and users at the University of Michigan's Hatcher Library

Abstract

Houbeck is head of the Serials Division, U n i versi ty of Michigan L ib ra ry , Ann Arbor . Several years ago when the Univers i ty of Michigan L ibra ry merged a technical service and a public service serials unit into a single body, our goals were to el iminate duplicat ion of recording, realize a net gain in reader space, and improve serials service to our patrons. 1 The first two goals we accompl ished immediate ly . But what about patron service? How did we plan to improve patron service? And did we? Located within the l ibrary 's Technical Services Depar tmen t and called Serials Services and Records (SSR), the new unit had two ma jo r functions: to mainta in the Ha tcher Gradua te L ibra ry ' s serials collection and to receive and record all Univers i ty L ib ra ry serials. As the name of the new unit implies, we sought to improve patron access both to the serials in our collections and to in format ion about those serials. We focused on four major endeavors.