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Fig. 173.—Buff Card, showing Arrangement for Dailies ([Section 475]).

476.

476. The morning check of periodicals as they lie on the tables should be done by an assistant armed with a list, written or printed on a card, by means of which he or she can follow the order of all the periodicals as they are arranged on stands, tables or racks. Anything missing should be noted on a separate slip of paper, and entered in the work-book. The initials of the checker should also be written in the work-book in the space provided. (See [Section 89].) The librarian should receive the check slip if anything is missing. In similar fashion the assistant who examines the periodical check cards for overdues should notify the librarian of any numbers not promptly received.

The filing of magazines and newspapers may be done in a variety of ways. Newspapers should be kept in order on special racks, in piles, with a suitable board underneath to act as a runner and support, and a sheet of cardboard or glazed casing paper above to prevent the settling of dust. Periodicals and magazines may either be kept in special cloth-covered boxes made to take a whole or half-year’s numbers, as the case may be, or kept on boards in the same manner as newspapers. In both cases alphabetical order of titles will be found a suitable arrangement. The plan of placing the numbers of a periodical as done at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, seems a simple and effective manner of dealing with a large number of files. This is illustrated in [Fig. 174].

477.

477. It is not advisable to reserve anything, either for binding, or preservation for a time, and it is wise to make up a list of periodicals and newspapers which it is intended to keep, file them, and give all the remainder away to poorhouses, asylums or similar institutions. Sometimes they can be sold at half-price as withdrawn from the tables, but in most cases all matter of this kind has to be sold as waste-paper.

478.

478. The only satisfactory method of counting the attendances in general reading rooms is by means of a recording turnstile. All other methods of occasional counts and the striking of averages are unreliable. The demand for statistics is sometimes so strong, unfortunately, that librarians are driven to satisfy their committees as to the use made of reading rooms, and in the absence of a turnstile the best thing to do is to take whole-day counts as follows: on a Monday in January; Tuesday in February; Wednesday in March, etc.; divide the total by twelve, and multiply the average thus obtained by the number of days open. Every individual who enters or re-enters must be counted. This gives a mere approximation to the actual attendance, but is a better and more reasonable plan than counting the readers present in the rooms every hour or half-hour, adding the totals together, and reckoning the result as the day’s attendance.