Greetings,
Here are some responses as to how you deal with spineless catalogues 
on your shelves...thanks to everyone who replied!  It seems that 
archival boxes are the popular choice...followed by binding for those 
who can afford it.

"We have a large collection of annual reports which are thin and of 
various sizes.  We place them in magazine/pamphlet file boxes that 
sit on the shelves.  You can get them from library supply sources 
like Gaylord or home stores like The Container Store or Ikea.  Most 
of them have a slot for a label, so you can group them as you choose 
and then label them for easy
retrieval."

"Until recently I worked at the Tate Library in London and we had a 
reasonable solution to this problem - archival quality boxes that 
stand on their ends - but this all depends on how you are organizing 
the spineless items. I presume most are exhibition catalogues?
We had a sequence of solo ex cats, filed alphabetically. The group ex 
cats sequence was broken down into the country where the exhibition 
was held, followed by the city, and then the gallery name. The class 
mark was USA-NEW-MUS (USA, New York, Museum of Modern Art). Not all 
galleries had their own boxes, some were mixed, and some cities were 
mixed. It is quite hard to explain, without seeing it.
Anyway, we put most catalogues in the boxes, unless they were 
hardcover, whereby they would sit on the shelf beside their respective box.
I have seen other institutions file their spineless items in magazine 
file boxes, at least it keeps them together, but I have always found 
they are less protected in that medium."

"Here are some of the solutions we've taken in the past:
*  Formerly - items were boxed (flip-top, archival) with others from 
the same institution.  They were indifferently cataloged.  Lately, we 
have been pulling these out and outsourcing the cataloging and 
binding.  This project has been stopped until we find more soft money for it.
*  Some items in the collection (of the same vintage as those above) 
were selected out from boxes and bound.
*  Some items were placed in an artist vertical file - leaved by 
artist into hanging files.
*  Serial catalogs were generally bound together, if complete.  If 
incomplete, they were usually put into a box or four-flap enclosure.
Currently, we are dealing with these materials from three streams - 
current dealer catalogs we would normally receive; materials from our 
artist vertical file and file boxes that we are reviewing for more 
complete treatment (mainly ten to twenty years old);  and a gift of a 
large number of dealer catalogs, published over the last thirty years 
(or more).  With the numbers involved, we have neither the staff nor 
the money to individually bind them.  Plus we have a serious space issue.
Our solutions, at least today, are:
*  Very small items (i.e. broadsheets or bi- or tri-fold items) are 
going into the artist vertical file, where applicable.
*  Larger items are cataloged and processed for offsite storage.  If 
they are small, old, fragile or at risk in some other way, they will 
go into archival envelopes.  Otherwise, they will be sent to our 
offsite facility as is.  The thought is that they will be at optimum 
conditions (low temperature and humidity) and touched only when 
needed, so they do not need the protection that binding offers.
*  Selected items (important? large? taste and judgement - and 
seredipity - will be involved) will be bound as before and will remain onsite.
I believe that binding is the best long-term solution for most of 
these materials.  There will always be some that don't lend 
themselves to it (tri-fold brochures or items no inner margin or 
catalogs reproducing art on individual loose sheets, for example), 
but the binding gives them sturdiness and protects them from ordinary 
bumps and abuse.
What's the best solution?  It depends upon staff  time, money and 
usage.  At a public library with open stacks, these items may be 
shifted enough to warrant binding.  If they are offsite or otherwise 
only lightly accesible, archival enclosures may be enough."

"With respect to spineless catalogs, what I do at MOCA is put them in 
acid free folders and shelve them with the rest of the books. They 
have extra support and are browseable for staff. I purchase the 
folders from Metal Edge, a local company. See
http://www.metaledgeinc.com/Products.tpl?cart=11930740481645150&id1=15&id2=451&startat=1&--woSECTIONSdatarq=451&--SECTIONSword=ww&ran=7475 
. They come in two standard sizes, which fit most documents."

"Hi Joel. Depending on their significance to the collection and the 
amount of use they get, as well as their thickness, I either put them 
in "pamphlet binders" (with or without envelopes, depending on their 
size) Whether with pamphlet binder or without, I type up the title and call
number on archival labels and affix to the "spine", such as it is.
Use an underline mark at the beginning and ending edge of the label as a
mark for where to place the label:
_ GEORGES ROUAULT : GRAPHIK AQUARELLE _
   GEORGES ROUAULT : GRAPHIK AQUARELLE
I also type it so that, on the items with stapled biding, the fold shows
the title on each side, making it easier to read on the shelf.
Hope this makes sense.
We don't have the money to send things out for binding. Besides, they 
don't get than much use as a public library might. Hope this makes 
sense and that it helps."

"Here at the Crafts Council Research Library our spineless stock is 
placed ina plastic A4 sleeve and stored in numbered magazine files at 
the beginning of each catalogue code. That's all very well and good 
when the books fit...they often don't! I'd be interested to hear of 
the responses that you get - although we certainly don't have the 
quantity you are dealing with, a great proportion of our collection 
is made up of spineless publications."

Thank you all again!  Look for a special gift in the next posting!
Joel J. Rane
Author and Librarian
http://www.joelrane.com/
Read the Book at:  http://www.screamatthelibrarian.com/
Read the Screed at:  http://www.californialibre.com/
___________________________________________
Take a tip from your protoplasm and get in a little riotous
living.  -- Advice to an uptight biologist on "Hawaii 5-0"

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