Members of the Inter-Residence Hall Association will decide Thursday if any changes will be made to the distribution of four major newspapers throughout the residence halls.

The program was implemented in the fall of 2001 and has been renewed by IRHA annually.

The Readership Program provides residence hall students with four different newspapers within the residence halls, which include USA Today, the Des Moines Register, the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times.

Carl Carlson, vice president of IRHA, said he wants to continue the program because of the success it’s had over the years.

“It’s great to provide several different papers to enjoy and get information from,” he said. “And if nothing else, there are more crossword puzzles.”

Iowa State Daily General Manager Annette Forbes said the Iowa State Daily has not seen a dramatic effect from the extra newspapers in the residence halls. However, Forbes said, it is the possibility of having the program expand campuswide which could hinder the student publication.

“The amount of newspapers distributed in the residence halls isn’t enough to impact the Daily,” she said. “If they chose to go campuswide, it would have an impact.”

Forbes said no one disagrees with the idea of a Readership Program.

“Students need to be conscious of what’s going on around the world,” she said.

Yet, Forbes said, students can receive that consciousness of the world through the readership publications’ online editions, which students can access through their computers.

Forbes said this, as well as other actions taken by Gannett — such as not placing bins in high-traffic areas — indicate that the corporation is using the program as a ploy to boost their circulation numbers.

“The more circulation they have, the more advertising they can sell,” she said.

Expanding the Readership Program to college campuses opens an avenue to sell more advertising that hadn’t been available in the past, she said. With the ability to sell more advertising comes the potential for those advertising with the Daily to drop their advertising space for room in the larger Gannett papers — an avenue that takes money away from the Daily.

Carlson said students should have alternate sources of news. “The Daily is not where people should be getting all of their news,” Carlson said.

In other business, a Women’s Studies 201 group is asking for $340 to pay for stickers containing emergency numbers that would be placed on the backs of every door in the residence halls.

Because of budget issues, the Department of Residence is unable to help fund the effort, which is why the Women’s Studies group is turning to IRHA, said John Shertzer, residence life coordinator for the Department of Residence.