Thanks for everyone who responded.

I had 20 replies which were really helpful.

1)	What are your current loan periods
Ref - 20	
Hourly - 4 
1 day - 2	
2 day -2	
3 day -5 	
1 week- 18
2 weeks- 6
3 weeks	- 8
4 weeks	-8
12 weeks	-2

2)	If you have got rid of shorter loan periods, what was the reasoning behind this

We've moved as many as possible away from the 2 day loan towards 1 week if we are asked for shorter loan periods
•	The main driver to moving away from very short loan periods was (a) students hated them (b) students were often caught out by the large fines associated with short loan books (c) It was all far too complicated and we wanted to tidy things up a bit...
•	We used to have overnight loans but stopped these a couple of years ago. We thought it wasn't worth the hassle with students complaining about fines they accrued when the item wasn't back by the 9.30am deadline, also due to the nature of the loan period, the item probably wasn't as heavily used as it could have been. We made some of this material reference only, and the rest 1 week loan.
•	Moved from 'overnight' to 2 day, gave more access, and students tend to bring back on time!
•	2-day loans were introduced for Biological Anthropology books ca 2001,then lengthened to 4 days, then subsumed among the other open-shelf material in 2011.  All these changes were on account of reader demand. Rationale for short loans was the speed w. which users got the required information from books; end of that requirement presumably resulted from shift of that kind of reading from books to online.
•	confusing, increased fines and disputes. Longer loan period from 1-2weeks has taken 1/3 off the fines bill and student satisfaction is higher with circulation.
•	We moved from overnight loan, to 24 hour loan to, finally, Three day loan in response to student feedback. They hate short loan periods, particularly if they don't need to be on campus next day.
•	We used to have 3 day loans, but students complained that they weren't able to return the books on time so we stopped this loan period.
•	HAVE CUT 3 HOURS, MORE 1 WEEK & as much e-books as poss
•	The main reason is that the short loan books were unpopular and unused - even when all other copies were out.  I assume this is because short loan books are on a different floor (at the counter) to the main collections, and  students tend to browse the shelves rather than use the catalogue, so books behind the counter are 'unseen'.  A minor reason is that we are trying to reduce traffic at the counter and encourage self-issue.  
•	One of the principle reasons for changing the loan periods was that it was felt the 3 day loan actually inhibited borrowing with many students preferring older editions with longer loan periods to newer editions with shorter loan periods. Some copies which had been on two week loan were changed to 1 week loans as an attempt to maintain the status quo in terms of potential available loans per month for heavily used titles. We felt that with stock which was only occasionally, rarely or never used the loan periods weren't a major factor in terms of availability anyway.
•	At the time the potential change was a major concern for some of the subject librarians so attempts were made to monitor loans to see if extra 1 week loans or short loans were required for heavily used stock. I'm not aware of any substantive changes were made afterwards though.
•	Up to last year we had overnight loans but due to declining use, high fines on them and having them located behind a service desk - we changed this loan group to high demand 3 day loan and added to the open shelves. We were also undergoing a refurbishment and had nowhere to store behind the desk any longer.
•	We got rid of our overnight loans and replaced with High Demand because ONL's underused and due to refurbishment storage/management of collection became unworkable
•	We used to have overnight loan - wasn’t much borrowed, and caused many issues around start and end times which never seemed to suit those who did borrow, so we went for the Core Ref Only items mentioned above instead
•	User to be 4 hours during the day - ruled too short
•	3 day loans cannot be requested, so they do not sit unused for days on the holds shelf and remain in circulation.


3)	Do you have multiple reference copies

•	Yes with the STLs above - there are up to 4 copies of very popular items.
•	1 copy only
•	1 copy
•	We tend to only have 1 reference copy of popular titles, and it is the very popular titles that are 4 hour loan to ensure that there is always a copy around as I'm sure you're aware reference only copies can go 'missing'.
•	We positively discourage reference copies but the category still exists and gets used by some academics - we can't monitor theft efficiently. We have not allowed multiple reference copies. We encourage ebook purchase instead of reference where possible.
•	No, generally one copy only for REF, although an increasing number are now also being purchased as e-books.
•	Yes
•	yes if large numbers
•	Very few multiple Ref copies. Where possible, we'd go for an e-book.
•	We do not have multiple reference copies, we do not have many reference books in our collections.
•	NO (can't afford to)
•	We don't have multiple reference copies - we do have a high number of reservations.
•	We also try and buy as many e-books as possible,
•	Not usually but sometimes we do in the law section, on the whole we don't
•	usually only 1 reference copy unless tutor asks for more - rarely happens
•	No
•	I tend to only have one reference copy per title
•	There might be a few v.special titles like this - but mostly it would be 1 ref copy of core reading items with a variable amount of loan copies depending on student numbers on the module concerned