Our Short Loan collection has shrunk in size over recent years and seems to
be getting much less use from the students (although they still complain
about insuffient copies of core texts!). The collection is in a secure
open access area adjacent to the Issue Desk quite separate from the Main
Collection. We are wondering about integrating the books into the main
sequence and only retaining the short loan period for titles which are
heavily used.
Currently short loan here means a book borrowed anytime on one day is due
back by 10am on the following day. We are wondering whether 24-hour or
possibly 2-day loan would be better.
We'd be very interested to hear from other university libraries that have
tackled these issues:
1) Do/did you have a separate Short Loan Collection?
2) If you've disbanded your collection:
a) Did you integrate the books into the main collection? If so, did you
suffer increased vandalism as the books were no longer in a secure area?
b) Did you come up with a different solution eg reference copies of core
texts within a social learning area? If so, how successful was it?
3) What 'short loan' period do you use? Have you explored various options?
If you can reply to me, I'll summarise for the list.
Thanks for your help
Carolyn Haresign
Head of Library Academic Services
Coventry University
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