From 5 to 20 per cent can very often be saved on the cost of periodicals by ordering them through a reliable subscription agency.

The custom is extending of taking extra numbers of the popular magazines and lending them as if they were books though generally for a shorter period and without the privilege of renewal.  When this is done, put each magazine in a binder made for the purpose, and marked with the library’s name, to keep it clean and smooth, and to identify it as library property.  Similar binders are often put on the magazines which are placed in the reading rooms. (See Library Bureau catalog.)

Complete volumes of the magazines are in great demand with the borrowing public.  The magazine indexes now available will make useful to the student the smallest library’s supply of periodical literature.

In small reading rooms the periodicals that are supplied should be placed on tables where readers can consult them without application to the attendants.  Files and racks for newspapers, special devices for holding illustrated journals, and other things of like nature, are to be found in great variety.

Post up in the reading room a list of the periodicals regularly received; also a list of those in the bound files.

A careful record should be kept of each magazine ordered, of the date when ordered, the date when the subscription begins and expires, the price paid, the agency from which it is ordered, and the date of that agency’s receipted bill.  If the list of journals taken is small this record can be kept very conveniently in a blank book.  If it is large and constantly growing or changing, it is best kept on cards, a card to each journal, and all alphabetically arranged.  It saves much trouble when dealing with an agency to have subscriptions coincide with the calendar year, disregarding the volume arrangements of the publishers.

CHAPTER XV

List of periodicals for a small library

[See also chapter List of things needed in beginning work.]

Century magazine (monthly), illus.  N.Y.  Century Co.  Ed. by R.W.  Gilder, $4.

Harper’s new monthly magazine, illus.  N.Y.  Harper.  Ed. by H.M.  Alden, $4.

Harper’s round table (monthly), illus.  N.Y.  Harper, $1.

St Nicholas (monthly), illus.  N.Y.  Century Co.  Ed. by Mary Mapes
Dodge, $3.

Forum (monthly), N.Y.  Forum Co., $3.

Harper’s weekly, illus.  N.Y.  Harper, $4.

Youth’s companion (weekly).  Boston.  Perry Mason Co., $1.75.

McClure’s magazine (monthly), illus.  N.Y.  Doubleday & McClure, $1.

Ladies’ home journal (monthly), illus.  Phila.  Curtis Pub.  Co., $1.

Independent (weekly).  N.Y. $2.

Outlook (weekly), illus.  N.Y. $3.

Engineering magazine (monthly).  N.Y. $3.

Life (weekly), illus.  N.Y. $5.