First, consult the check-in record notes. See if there are explicit instructions for handling said supplement (supplement check-in will be discussed further here). If there are none, the supplement, along with the parent issue, will need to be sent to the Receiving Specialist for review.
Most sups arrive in the same packaging as the parent issue, but as a separate item. Others will be mailed separately. Often sups will come inside the issue with removable glue. These are considered separate items and should be removed, which can be done by Serials staff (see Glued-In Items section below for more information).
***Most sups or separate sections with their own pagination that are stapled in the middle of the parent issue do NOT need to be removed, but there are occasional exceptions, which will be indicated in the check-in record notes. Please note that removal of any stapled-in items should be done so by PRESERVATION staff. Please check the item in and add the public note "@serials:binding (d/i)" before sending it to Preservation.***
For a new sup that accompanies a regular issue: check in and label the main issue as you normally would. Tuck the sup into the main issue and place both pieces on the Receiving Specialist’s desk for review. The sup will either be discarded, checked in, or returned to you, along with the main issue, with check-in instructions.
For a piece that arrives by itself but is clearly a supplement to a journal (i.e. it says "a supplement to [parent title]" on the cover or in a publisher letter that comes with it), place it on the Receiving Specialist’s desk with a post-it stating the bib number of the parent title and that it needs a sup review, or follow any existing instructions in the parent title’s record for the item in question.
Occasionally, you will receive an unfamiliar, separate piece that is not clearly a supplement, but sometimes a Sierra search using keyword or author, will result in a title that the piece may be associated with (i.e. same organization, same subject matter, etc.). Also, using the piece's title in a journal title or title search, you may find the parent title's record if the piece is a named sup, as named sups are added to the bib record as alternate titles and are therefore searchable. Otherwise, these items should go to the Receiving Specialist for review along with any helpful info you could find.
Most advertisements, product catalogs, and conference agendas will be discarded. However, if the advertisement appears to have useful information (for example, many advertisements that come with pest management journals are treated as sups because they are relevant to research in that area), send it to the Receiving Specialist for a sup review. Always review the sup notes in the check-in record to see if there are exceptions and/or instructions on how to process specific items.
The above screenshot, from the journal Pest Control Technology, contains good examples of a variety of sup notes you are likely to encounter in a check-in record. It contains general instructions for what types of supplemental material to review for check-in for this title, as well as specifics on both wanted and unwanted sups that have already been reviewed.
You will most commonly see "SUP" for sups that have been approved for check-in. These generally include the sup's title, which can be copied and pasted into the public note area of the check-in box. They often contain info about which issue the sup first appeared with, which could help you determine if it should be reviewed to become a named sup.
If you receive a sup that is not listed in these notes, it has probably not been reviewed and will need to be passed along to the Receiving Specialist before being checked in.
You'll also notice that a couple of these sups specify "bind with title" or "discard at time of bind." These types of notes have to do with what will happen to the sup when it comes time to bind the issues of the title into a bound volume. These instructions should be added to the staff note area of the sup's check-in box and written on the strip if the sup was a glued-in item.
These notes will also contain instructions for posters or any other special format sups, as well as any items that are listed in the HSD. Most HSD items mentioned in sup notes will be discarded, but not always. When you see HSD notes you will need to follow the instructions found in the HSD instructions page.
Often, while flipping through an issue to check for oddities, defects, etc., you will find an item that is glued onto a page or strip inside the issue. Glued-in items are often sups. Any glued-in item, whether it is inside the issue or attached to the front cover, regardless of whether it's a sup or unwanted item like a single-page advertisement, will need to be removed during the check-in process. Serials that are processed and sent the collection should not have any glued items in or on them.
Guidelines on glued-in items:
If the supplement has undergone review and can be checked in:
Consult the SUP notes, for example:
It is also a good idea to, if still in the card, check previous boxes for previous issues of the same sup for patterns.If you receive an item listed as a sup, such as the "School Guide" from the above example, you will do the following:
Examples of how a supplement box looks after checking in the piece:
Sups that have arrived and been checked in at least 3 times should be reviewed by the Receiving Specialist to possibly become “named sups” (which means that the sup will be listed as an alternate title in the parent title’s bib record, which makes the sup searchable in OneSearch).
How do I tell if a sup is already a named sup or needs named sup review?
As of April 2018, we are no longer processing "INCL SUPs," i.e. supplements that are bound or stapled inside of the main issue but have their own pagination and/or are listed in the TOC or on the cover as a supplement. We are generally only interested in supplements that are separate items, but there are occasionally exceptions. For example, most flip-over sups (tête-bêche supplements) are still processed as sups, so keep an eye open for any INCL SUP notes that have instructions on how to treat them.
Here are a couple of examples, with instructions for a flip-over sup and an INCL SUP that we still process:
Sometimes posters arrive with publications.
If a poster is received with an item to be checked-in, examine the check-in record for instructions on how to treat the poster. If directions are present, please read carefully and follow them. Some posters are discarded, some are sent to a librarian for display, while others are checked in as sups and perhaps sent to Binding to be held, such as this one:
Most posters that are checked in will be need to be identified by the title of the poster in the public note of the supplement check-in box. (Note: If the poster is double-sided and each side has a unique poster title, please be sure to identify both sides in the public note of the box. You can do this by separating each side with a semicolon or a slash. For example: "Poster: Civics in Action / American Presidents"), or:
If there are no check-in record notes regarding posters, treat the poster as a possible supplement and pass it, along with the main issue, on to the Receiving Specialist for review.
Occasionally a journal will come with a sup in CD or DVD format. For instructions on checking in these media materials, go here.
A few journals, geographic magazines for instance, may occasionally come with maps. These have very specific instructions and are processed differently than other sups.For example, they will likely involve creating item records, printing the call number label from the item record, and processing the piece for a different location, which would require you to count it differently on your statistics sheet. Below is an example of map processing instructions and the resulting check-in boxes with notes:
With limited retention titles, you will often need to perform card maintenance after several issues have been discarded. The discard process is generally performed by either Preservation personnel or student employees. Full discard procedures can be found in the Discard Area section of the Serials Work Study & Hourly Employees StaffGuide.
However, the Receiving Specialist will be responsible for deleting the boxes for these issues after the main discard process has been completed. When checking in limited retention titles, watch for clusters of suppressed boxes with the "removed" status. If you see these, look for a corresponding BIND INFO note in the check-in record. This note should indicate the dates and enumeration of the discarded issues, which should match the removed boxes in the check-in card, followed by the date and initials of the staff member that did the discarding. Example:
After you've confirmed that the info in the note matches the info in the "removed" boxes, you can delete the removed boxes. Once you've done this, add a brief explanation that you've deleted the boxes to the end of said BIND INFO note, like the example above.
You may sometimes come across an isolated box with the "removed" status rather than clusters. These will often be discarded supplements. The parent titles themselves are usually bound titles, but some supplements to bound titles are not permanently retained. You can confirm that this is the case by examining the sup notes and finding a note indicating that the sup is checked in and processed, but will ultimately get discarded when it comes time to bind the parent title:
You will follow the same procedures for these discarded individual supplements that you would for rows of discarded issues in a normal limited retention situation. There should be a bind info note corresponding to the removed box. After verifying this, you can proceed to delete the removed box and add a brief note to the bind info note that you've deleted the box.