This study was designed to accomplish three objectives relating to periodical circulation in college and university libraries: 1) to establish present circulation policy trends, 2) to obtain attitudinal information on mutilation and theft of periodicals from serial librarians, and 3) to ascertain if there were, at present, any workable methods of preventing damage to periodicals. Four-page questionnaires were sent to 126 institutions which met the criteria of being four-year schools offering undergraduate and graduate programs, having over 1000 students, and receiving 1000-3000 current periodicals. The 92 replies were tabulated in simple percentages for each item of the questionnaire. Results indicated no correlation between size of enrollment and/or collection and the degree of mutilation of periodicals. Most libraries are not moving toward a liberal circulation policy. Librarians whose collections experienced little mutilation or theft credited this to their circulation policy, while librarians with problems in this area tended to blame the students, not their policy. Finally, despite much experimentation, no really effective security system yet exists. (SL)