Ellen Siegel Kovacic, Column Editor Cataloging Serials

Serials Section Committee to Study Serials Cataloging

ALA Annual Meeting 1986

The Serials Section Commit tee to Study Se- rials Cataloging met twice at the A L A ' s 1986 A n - nual Conference . At the f irst meet ing CC:DA's response to the commit tee ' s midwinter r e c o m m e n - dations on the revision of A A C R 2 21.2A and 21.2C were discussed. Ben Tucker had rewri t ten the recommenda t ion , and it was agreed that he had improved the wording. By the close of the con- ference CC:DA had decided to support the proposal as modif ied. The recommendat ions that follow will now be proposed to the Joint Steering C o m - mit tee in October . Please Note: These are not rule changes until they are approved by the Joint Steering Committee.

21.2A Def in i t ion

Consider a title proper to have changed if:

1. Any word other than an article, preposi t ion, or conjunct ion is added, deleted or changed. Exceptions:

a. The change is in the r ep re - sentat ion of a word or words (e.g., ab- brevia t ion, symbol, numbers or dates vs. spelled out form, one word vs. separate words vs. hyphena ted words).

b. The addit ion, deletion, or change comes af ter the first f ive words (not count ing an initial article) and does not change the meaning of the title or ref lect d i f f e ren t subject content.

c. The name of the issuing body (plus any appropr ia te linguistic connec- tion) is added or deleted at the end of the title.

2. There is any change in the order of the f i rs t f ive words (not counting an initial article).

The addit ion, deletion or change of punc tua t ion does not consti tute a change in the title proper.

In case of doubt consider the title

proper to have changed. Record as appropr ia te in the notes

area those changes not considered to consti tute a change in the title proper (see 1.7B4). Make an added entry if necessary for access (see 21.30J).

21.2C Serials

I f the title proper of a serial changes, make a separate main entry for each title. Exceptions:

1. I f the title p roper of the first issue of a serial continues to appear on the chief source of later issues, and:

a. Later issues have a parallel title that did not appear on the first issue

or,

b. the order of the titles in more than one language or scr ipt has changed.

2. I f two or more titles are used on d i f fe ren t issues according to a regular pat tern or if the language of the title varies according to the language of the text.

At the second meet ing of the Serials Section Commit tee to Study Serials Cataloging, the main topic of discussion was the problem of "multiple versions" of a title. The d ra f t of a L ibra ry of Congress document enti t led, Proposed Methods for Handling Multiple Versions--A Summary of Pro- posals to Date (Prepared by Leo H. Settler, Jr., Off ice of the Director for Bibliographic Products and Services, L ib ra ry of Congress, Washington, DC, June 1986 [12 leaves]) was presented to the commit tee . The s u m m a r y of proposals to date begins with an outline of the policies or systems to be taken into considerat ion when addressing the problem. Briefly, they are: 1) A A C R 2 and LC's current micro- fo rm policy; 2) the technical requirements of the MARC Format for Holdings & Locations; 3) the recent ly designed LC Circulat ion System; 4) the fu ture requirements of LC 's Serials Management System; and 5) the requi rements and limitations of extant bibl iographic systems.

Before deciding upon a method for handling mult iple versions, the L ib r a ry of Congress must de termine whether it will distr ibute its holdings

SERIALS REVIEW WINTER 1986 73

in the M A R C format . I f the answer is yes, will the data be a part of the bibl iographic record or an independent record? Finally, LC must de te r - mine what in format ion will be recorded in each type of record?

The proposals presented range f rom using a single bibl iographic record with mult iple 051 or 9xx fields, through the use of master records (as in the U.S. Newspaper Project) , to separate b ib- l iographic records for each version along with a separate holdings record for each version. The Library of Congress is explor ing these ideas. It is hoped that the solution chosen will deal with paper reproduct ions as well as mic ro fo rm reproduc- tions.

At the end of the meet ing, some topics or questions directed to the commit tee were discussed. The question of what to use as the chief source of in format ion when there is no title page was defer red until a m e m b e r of the commit tee could develop a draf t for discussion. The next ques t i on

before the commit tee concerned the tracing of monograph ic series; that is, does one need to trace the authorized fo rm (8xx) when the 4xx can be searched in an au tomated system? The answer is yes, due to three factors: 1) the collocation funct ion of the 8xx for both collection develop- ment and the patron; 2) fail ing to trace the 8xx assumes that the same capabili t ies will be available on all systems and that one will always have the same system; and 3) ne tworking considerations.

There was also a br ie f discussion of succes- sive designations (AACR2 12.3G). The major factor to be de te rmined in the case of successive desig- nations is whether this is one serial or two serials. I f it is one serial, use ",'"; and i f it is two serials, make a new record.

Joyce McDonough McDonough is Head of Acquisi t ions at the

Eks t rom Libra ry of the Univers i ty of Louisville in Louisvil le, Ken tucky .

74 SERIALS REVIEW WINTER 1986