Re: DVD wear and tear

Stephen O'Riordan (soriordan@ucsd.edu)
Mon, 10 Mar 2003 10:41:56 -0800 (PST)

At UCSD we have had our share of problems with dvd. They are very fragile
(not to mention hard to get out of some cases). A glitch in vhs will not
stop a 300 student class dead in the water as a smudge or a scratch in a
dvd will. We have always circulated to faculty and graduate students and
historically have had very little trouble. With dvd the main problem (
along with general carelessness) seems to be not carefully putting the disc
into the tray of the player. Of course, when the player shuts, it jams &
scratches the disc. We have; put - BE CAREFUL - labels on cases, use an
Azuradisc disc repair machine, changed hard to remove cases with an easier
design, and threatened to make dvds library use only. Time will tell.

Stephen

At 09:12 AM 3/10/2003 -0800, you wrote:

>At Western Washington University's Wilson Library we have been adding DVDs
>to our collection for the last couple of years. Initially we had hoped to
>eventually migrate our VHS collection to DVD - misguidedly believing
>that disks would be less vulnerable to damage than VHS tapes. Now I'm no
>longer sure this is reasonable direction.
>
>Our video collection is on open shelves and parts if it, especially the
>feature films, circulate quite heavily. The titles we've accquired on DVD
>have been much more problematic than we had hoped. The big issue seems to
>be the manner in which library users handle (or mishandle??) them.
>Fingerprinting and scratches are epidemic and increasingly users are
>complaining about the frequency with which they are unable to watch DVDs
>checked out from our collection because of this.
>
>After using some over the counter solutions including Disk Doctor with
>moderately reasonable results. In the last several months we've begun
>sending the disks to a business in our region that resurfaces them for a
>few bucks per. They do a great job with very fast turnaround time but my
>main concern is the frustration that the format is causing our users.
>
>Have any of you given up on DVDs and gone back the accquiring VHS whenever
>there is an option? How are others dealing with these issues? We have
>begun putting a sheet for reporting trouble with a disk in DVD cases
>hoping that users will communicate their problems to us in a more orderly
>and coherent fashion (rather than a ticked off "Doesn't work!" relayed
>through a student employee). But, we've done this for a couple of years
>with our VHS tapes and mostly users don't complete the form when they do
>have trouble.
>
>Any suggestions or insights would be appreciated.
>
>Frank Haulgren
>ILL / Media & Microforms / Document Delivery
>Wilson Library
>Western Washington University
>Bellingham, WA 98225-9103
>/^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^\
>e-mail haulgren@cc.wwu.edu
>Phone 360-650-7641 FAX 360-650-7397
>ARIEL 140.160.178.79

Stephen 0'Riordan
UCSD Libraries / Film & Video Library
9500 Gilman dr
La Jolla, CA 92093-0175Q
tel: (858) 534-7981
fax: (858) 534-0189
e-mail: soriordan@ucsd.edu
http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/fvl/FVLPAGE.HTM