College and Research Libraries


80 I College & Research Libraries •January 1982 

Despite the need for further research, our 
findings at least suggest that, where librar-
ians want to improve immediate recall of cer-
tain key points in their slide/tape programs, 
they might well consider using series of 
question-and-answer slides to achieve their 
goal. 

REFERENCES 

l. The findings of our study with its large sample 
population corroborate those of Ralph Parsons' 
smaller study, A Comparison of Interactive and 
Non-Interactive Audio-Visual Programs 
(Arlington, Va.: ERIC Document Reproduc-
tion Service, ED 157 508, 1978). 

JANELL RUDOLPH AND KIT BYUNN 

Academic Library Newspaper 
Collections: Developing Policy 

In the fall of 1979, facing budget and space 
restrictions, the Periodicals Department of 
Memphis State Libraries began to review 
current periodical subscriptions in an at-
tempt to cancel titles that were no longer 
needed to support the university's curricu-
lum. Newspaper subscriptions were included 
in this review. However, because the guide-
lines for selection and retention of newspaper 
titles were different from those governing 
other periodicals, a special committee was 
appointed in January 1980, to formulate a 
written policy to guide the Periodicals De-
partment in its review of the newspaper col-
lection and to establish official library policy 
concerning newspaper holdings. The direc-
tor of libraries specifically instructed the 
committee to consider in its charge the needs 
of (1) MSU students and faculty for current 
information that relates to the curriculum; 
(2) journalism students for examples of jour-
nalistic styles; (3) foreign-language students 
for current reading matter in foreign lan-
guages; (4) a variety of editorial positions; 
and (5) domestic and foreign students who 
desire to have news from their hometowns or 
countries. 

The committee worked closely with the 
head of the Periodicals Department in the 
formation of the newspaper policy, using de-
partmental guidelines as a basis for its study. 
The first task of the committee was to study 

]anell Rudolph is reference librarian and in-
structor, Kit Byunn is special pro;ects librarian and 
assistant professor, Memphis State University Li-
braries. 

existing newspaper subscriptions, including 
those in microform, to determine their rele-
vance to curriculum support and to student-
faculty demand. To assist this examination, 
the staff in the Periodicals Department and in 
the Microforms Departments made a four-
month statistical survey of all newspaper ti-
tles used. The committee combined these us-
age data with a summary of the geographic 
origins of students enrolled in MSU for the 
last four years, which provided an objective 
measure of the interests of the university com-
munity. The second step in the committee's 
action was to study existing policies govern-
ing newspaper subscriptions in other univer-
sity libraries. A survey of published litera-
ture, which involved both manual and online 
searching, was not helpful. There seemed to 
be very little, if anything, written about the 
acquisition and retention of newspapers by 
university libraries. Thus the committee de-
cided to survey libraries similar in function 
and size to Memphis State University Li-
braries. 

The survey was conducted through a nine-
part questionnaire sent to twenty-eight other 
university libraries in the southeastern 
United States. The questions were designed 
to determine the number and range of news-
paper titles the various universities consid-
ered important to their needs as well as the 
criteria used to define those needs. Another 
objective of the questionnaire was to find out 
how other libraries handled space problems, 
i.e., their policies on retention of newspapers 
in original format and in microform. A spe-
cific list of newspaper titles, U.S. and for-
eign, was included in order to compare -cur-



rent subscriptions and microform holdings 
among the universities and with MSU sub-
scriptions and holdings. The questionnaire 
also sought to determine how many libraries 
have policy statements on newspaper selec-
tion and requested copies from those who an-
swered affirmatively. A total of twenty-three 
questionnaires were returned, an 85 percent 
response rate. 

SuRvEY SuMMARY 

Table 1 shows the total number of newspa-
per titles currently received by each of the 
responding libraries, and the number and 
percentage of those titles that are printed in 
the English language. The mean number of 
newspaper subscriptions is ninety-nine; the 
median is eighty-five newspaper titles. The 
libraries are ordered by the number of titles 
received. 

In order to determine how the libraries se-
lect the titles for their newspaper collections, 
the committee asked that they rank in order 
of importance certain selection criteria. Ta-
ble 2 shows that from the given criteria, cur-
riculum support was considered to be the 
most important factor in the selection 
process, while recreational interest was the 
least important criterion for most of the li-
braries surveyed. 

Library 
1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 

10 
11 
12 
13 
14 
15 
16 
17 
18 
19 
20 
21 
22 
23 

TABLE 1 

NuMBER OF NEWSPAPER TITLES 
CuRRENTLY RECEIVED 

Total Number 
of Titles 

Titles in English 
Number Percent 

327 
257 
143 .-
139 
137 
127 
119 
102 
100 
93 
92 
85 
81 
76 
72 
58 
50 
47 
44 
41 
40 
29 
19 

277 
144 
135 
107 
132 
80 
96 
63 
65 
68 
75 
15 
50 
57 
13 
50 
41 
29 
40 
29 
37 
24 
16 

84.7 
56.0 
94.4 
77.0 
96.4 
63.0 
80.7 
61.8 
65.0 
73.1 
81.5 
17.6 
61.7 
75.0 
18.1 
86.2 
82.0 
61.7 
90.9 
70 .7 
92.5 
82.8 
84.2 

Research Notes I 81 

The surveyed libraries order newspaper ti-
tles in microform for the same reasons they 
order newspapers in original form. When 
asked to rank selection criteria for newspaper 
titles in microform, the respondents again 
cited curriculum support as the most impor-
tant factor and recreational interest as least 
important, as shown in table 3. 

In its task of creating a policy for newspa-
per acquisition and retention, the committee 
was concerned about the university's respon-
sibility to provide titles for occasional need. 
Can the library depend upon interlibrary co-
operation for this service? A large majority of 
the libraries surveyed share newspapers in 
microform, as the data in figure 1 demon-
strate. Cooperative acquisition with regional 
libraries is not the current practice of most of 
these libraries, but a large percentage of these 
indicate that they do favor this method of 
providing needed newspapers, as shown in 
figure 2. 

TABLE 2 

CRITERIA FOR SELEcriON OF 
CuRRENT NEWSPAPER SuBSCRIPTIONS 

Mean Standard 
Criterion Rating Deviation 
Curriculum support 8.23 1.59 
Faculty request 7.33 2.26 
Index availability 6.55 2.86 
Cost 5.95 2.30 
Other• 5.78 3.23 
Local interest 5.64 2.65 
Potential usage 5.47 2.64 
Regional interest 5.45 2.13 
Student request 5.20 2.08 
Recreational interest 2.71 2.39 

•Quality of newspaper, range of coverage, availability in area 
libraries, availability of film were cited criteria . 

TABLE3 

CRITERIA FOR SELEcrioN oF 
NEWSPAPERS IN MICROFORM 

Mean Standard 
Criterion Rating Deviation 
Curriculum support 8.18 2.05 
Faculty request 7.45 2.40 
Index availability 7.32 2.56 
Cost 6.20 2.46 
Usage of hard copy 5 .95 2.73 
Other• 5.33 2.87 
Local interest 5.10 2.91 
Regional interest 5.00 2.29 
Student request 4.74 1.89 
Recreational interest 2.39 2.51 

• Local availability, national recognition for quality , responsibil-
ity of a joint program with neighboring university were cited crite-
ria, 



82 I College & Research Libraries· January 1982 

19 Libraries 
(82.6%) will lend nevs-
pap•rs in microform 

Fig.1 
Interlibrary Loan Policy for Newspapers in Micro-

form 

10 Librariea 
(43.5%) participating or 

plan to participaae in 
cooperative acquiai ioo 

Fig. 2 
·Participating in or Planning to 

Participate in Cooperative Acquisition Plan 

Storage and accessibility of current news-
papers was another concern of the commit-
tee. How long should the library keep news-
papers in their original form? Table 4 shows 
that most of those libraries surveyed did not 
keep them over a year. 

Since the objective of the committee study 
was to write a newspaper policy, the libraries 
being surveyed were asked whether they cur-
rently had such policies, and, if so, were re-
quested to enclose a copy with the completed 
questionnaire. Only eight responded that 
they did have a policy statement on the selec-
tion of newspaper titles, a ratio of 34.8 per-

TABLE4 

RET AI NED PERioD oF BAcK IssuES 
NoT ON MICROFORM 

Number of 
Period Retained Libraries 

2 months or less 6 
More than 2 months to 1 year 11 
More than 1 year 2 
Other• 1 
Noanswer 3 

Percent 

26 .1 
47 .8 

8 .7 
4.3 

13.0 
• one year for local and foreign language, one month for others. 

cent. A majority of the respondents said that 
they did not have a policy statement (60.9 
percent), while one respondent did not an-
swer the question (4.3 percent). The commit-
tee received from this survey seven policy 
statements, a copy of another newspaper pol-
icy committee report, a set of guidelines, and 
a report on newspaper holdings. These docu-
ments and the information about other uni-
versity library newspaper collections gained 
from the survey were very helpful to the com-
mittee in formulating a newspaper policy for 
MSU Libraries that is both satisfactory and 
practical. 

MSU LIBRARIES NEWSPAPER 
SELECTION POLICY 

I. Definition of n ewspaper 
The Library of Congress definition of news-
paper shall be used in establishing university 
policy governing library newspaper acquisi-
tion: " those publications issued on news-
print and containing general news coverage 
rather than being oriented toward specific 
subject matter. " (Serials: A MARC Format , 
Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress , 
1970, p .16.) 1 Special-interest publications , 
such as Women 's Wear Daily , will be con-
sidered as a special category of periodicals 
and will not be considered as part of the 
newspaper selection policy. 

II. Purpose of newspaper collection 
The newspapers held in the MSU Libraries 
collection will be those that are (1) required 
to support teaching, research, and public 
service functions of the university; (2) 
known to provide examples of editorial and 
journalistic excellence; and (3) chosen to 
give depth and breadth of regional , na-
tional , and international news coverage . 

III. Criteria for selection 
While the library recognizes the desirability 
of subscribing to hometown or home-
country newspapers or to other newspapers 
of personal interest to faculty, staff, and stu-



dents, these factors cannot serve as the sole 
justification for acquisition or retention of a 
particular newspaper. Selection of titles will 
be based upon the stated purpose of the 
newspaper collection as well as upon the fol-
lowing specific criteria: 
A. Geographic representation 

1. City: the major daily newspapers 
published in Memphis 

2. State: at least one major paper from 
each of the four largest metropolitan 
areas of Tennessee with selective cov-
erage of smaller cities 

3. Region: major newspapers in the 
Lower Mississippi Valley (those states 
bordering the Mississippi River south 
of its junction with the Ohio River) 

4. North America: at least one major 
newspaper from the major geo-
graphic regions of the United States 
and Canada, selected in the follow-
ing priorities, and at least one major 
paper representing Mexico: 
a . U .S. :Southeast, Midwest , South-

west, Northeast, Northwest 
b. Canada: Ontario, Quebec, West 

Canada 
5. International: newspapers shall be 

selected only on the basis of giving 
curriculum and research support, 
having international reputation , and 
availability of back files and indexes . 

B. Editorial and journalistic excellence 
based upon authoritative selection tools 
1. Titles that provide a balanced collec-

tion of diverse editorial viewpoints 
representative of major demographic 
groups in North America 

2. Award-winning newspapers and 
other titles recognized for journalistic 
excellence by journalism-department 
faculty 

IV. Gifts 
Gift newspapers will be accepted b y the Pe-
riodicals Department and will be added to 
the collection as dictated by departmental 
procedures·. 

V. Indexes 
Acquisition of newspaper indexes will be 
primarily determined by Reference and Pe-
riodical departments . 

VI. Retention 
Current editions of newspaper titles re-
tained in microform back files will be kept in 
the Periodicals Department until the micro-
form copies are added to the collection. 
Other newspapers will be kept for three 
months. 

VII. Procedure for requisition 
The current procedure for requesting and 

Research Notes I 83 

ordering periodicals will be used for news-
paper requisition. 

VIII. Microform collection 
Complete back files of newspapers in micro-
form should be acquired if available for two 
Memphis daily newspapers , for those re-
gional, national, and international titles 
that have been consistently and heavily used 
in support of research and teaching, and for 
those for which indexes are available. In-
complete back files of newspapers in micro-
form may be acquired in support of specific 
research and curricular needs only if these 
needs cannot be met through normal interli-
brary loan channels. 

IX. Cooperative collection development 
MSU Libraries should work cooperatively 
with other Memphis libraries to establish 
newspaper back files in microform and ac-
cessible indexes for those titles. 

X. Ongoing evaluation 
Periodic review of the newspaper collection 
should be conducted by the Periodicals De-
partment of the library. 

CONCLUSION 

Developing this policy has helped the li-
brarians of Memphis State Libraries to look 
objectively at the acquisition and mainte-
nance of the newspaper collection. They 
were forced to define parameters, state objec-
tives, and set standards by which to measure 
the newspaper collection. This self-study, 
along with the survey of other libraries and 
the departmental usage statistics, created an 
awareness of specific needs, needs that be-
came apparent as the proposed newspaper 
policy evolved. The library did have to cut 
titles in order to conform to the stated pur-
pose of the collection, but it also had to add 
titles to measure up to the policy standards. 
Therefore, implementation of the proposed 
newspaper policy would require a budget re-
view and a shifting of expenditures. What has 
been gained? The library, so it seems, is back 
to square one: review and shift. The differ-
ence now is that the moves have purpose and 
direction. In these times, that is a vital differ-
ence. 

REFERENCE 

l. This portion of the MSU Libraries Newspaper 
Policy was adapted from the newspaper policy 
of the University of Tennessee Library in Knox-
ville, Tennessee. Other libraries that shared 
policy statements, reports, and guidelines were 
also very influential in the development of the 
MSU Libraries Newspaper Policy. 



~g.-p>E QUESTIONED 
LIBRARIANS WORLD-WIDE. 

~~~HERE'S WHAT THEY TOLD US: 
• "This is one of our most helpful bibliographic 
tools . It makes my job so much easier. ... Our 
patrons find it easy to use and containing 
adequate references to articles valuable in 
their research . I don 't know how we managed 
without it." 

We've tried to make your job easier. Now the vast 
resources of govemment periodicals can readily 
be used by researchers and students, requiring less 
of your time helping them locate material. 
e "Index to U.S. Government Periodicals has 
significantly increased the use of our gov-
ernment periodicals and is our most important 
reference tool for government documents." 

Without Index to U.S. Govemment Periodicals 
use of these materials would be expensive and time 
consuming. Using many separate indexes simply 
isn't cost effective. Without this tool much of the 
information in these periodicals would be lost. 
e "What you choose to index has a direct 
bearing on which government periodicals 
our library chooses." 

Source material is only as valuable as its accessi-
bility. Add this Index to your collection to provide 
answers to the entire range of reference questions. 
• "We hove found the Index very useful 
in providing access to many periodicals not 
indexed elsewhere." 

Many titles are covered exclusively by Index 
to U.S. Govemment Periodicals. Plus coverage of 
titles included in over fifty other indexes. One 
standard for selection of new titles is lack of indexing 
by other services. 
e "Too often, it seems to me, is your Index 
to U.S. Government Periodicals sequestered 
away in the Documents Deportment. As a 
general periodical index, it merits a disposi-
tion next to PAIS, Readers ' Guide, etc . We 
ore now locating it next to Monthly Catalog 
to facilitate greater use." 

Index to U.S. Govemment Periodicals certainly 
has value beyond the bounds of the Documents 
Department. Those in general research will find 
it a valuable source for material not found in other 
standard guides. 

If after reading these remarks from present 
subscribers you still need further evidence of the 
Index's usefulness, let us send the latest quarterly on 
approval. With Index to U.S. Govemment Period-
icals in hand we know you'll put it on your order 
list. Ongoing annual service (3 paperbound 
quarterlies, plus hardbound annual cumulation): 
$275 per year. Volumes 1970-1981 : $250 each. 

INFORDATA INTERNATIONAL INC. 
175 East Delaware Place. Suite 4602C 
Chicago. Illinois 60611