Re: Classification of periodicals/serials Tremper) Rebecca House Stankowski 28 Sep 1993 23:09 UTC
As one of the (perhaps) foolish few institutions that circulates all of our periodicals (both bound and unbound), and as one who has recently undergone reclassification of the entire periodical collection (from shelving by title to shelving by call number), I can share some of the lessons that I'll never forget--- As for call numbers: Most of the time I use the same call number when a title changes. We have found that this makes it easier for the student assistants to shelve and for the patrons to find. It is especially useful for those piddly changes (like Atlantic to Atlantic Monthly to Atlantic and back again) that are all bound in the same color and would be a horrible mess if the cutter were changed for each title change. It can make it a bit more difficult for the Technical Services staff to get the right record by call number, but if you stress the importance of looking for closed dates in the 362, then it (usually) goes OK. You see that I say above "most of the time." There are several cases where it is necessary to have different call numbers--obviously in cases of mergers and splits, they can't all carry the same number. And on those happy occasions that the volume numbering begins again with a title change, you really need a different cutter (even if it's really the same journal) or the students and patrons get helplessly confused, because you have two vol. 1's, then two vol. 2's, but with different dates and they don't know what to do with them. As for basing numbers on subject matter or publishing history, that's more of a judgement call. The case of _Broadcasting Yearbook_ comes to mind, when it changed to _Broadcasting Cablecasting Yearbook_ (and I believe has made several more irritating changes in the past three or four years--like _Broadcasting Cablecasting Marketplace_ -- or am I confusing that with yet another?) Anyway, the addition of the "Cablecasting" business changed the class number entirely and by changing the call number the volumes were split up. I believe that _in general_ patrons are looking for something on a given subject and have looked up citations in an index and then go to the stacks to get their information. Since the whole idea of shelving periodicals/serials by class number rather than title is to group like subjects together, it is usually a better idea to follow the subject of a title rather than the title history. However, this isn't a hard and fast rule, and if some well-known title that might be used more for browsing changes focus (and title) a bit, it might be better to leave them all in a run. Oh, aren't serials grand!? Good luck. Rebecca House Stankowski Technical Services Librarian Purdue University Calumet Hammond, Indiana 46323-2094 stankorh@pucal.bitnet