SHEPARDS CITATIONS MAUREEN O LANDRY 13 Sep 1994 20:39 UTC

             Recently Marie Whited of  the  Law Library and Judy Kuhagen of
          the Policy Office  met  with several serial catalogers to discuss
          the  question  of  LCs recataloging "Shepard's" as  serials.   Up
          until  now  LC  has  cataloged Shepard's citations  as monographs
          because the work  as  a whole did  not  fit  LCs definition of  a
          serial.  Because of publishers' requests or  U.S.  Postal Service
          considerations, NSDP  has  cataloged  the supplements as  serials
          with notes to the monographs they update.

             The meeting was prompted by  a request from the  law community
          that  LC reconsider its policy and there was general agreement at
          this  meeting  to  treat Shepard's citations as serials.   On  an
          incremental basis  LC  will  recatalog   Shepard's  citations  as
          serials.

             There are, however, some questions about  HOW  to describe the
          titles.

             1.  Because the  bound volumes, supplements and advance sheets
          are  used together, the  law libraries in general would like  one
          record  for  each  title  with  notes  to explain the publication
          pattern.

             2.  Because  there  is  a  separate numbering scheme  for  the
          supplements and  the  bound  volumes,  some catalogers  feel  two
          records are needed with one to describe the bound set and another
          to describe the updating supplements.

             To get around the numbering problem, we are considering basing
          the description on  the CHRONOLOGICAL designation, ignoring  both
          the  volume numbers of  the supplements as  well  as  the edition
          numbers of  the bound set.  Thus there would only  be  one record
          with the  dual sets  of numbering explained in notes.  The Policy
          Office and the Law Library favor this approach.

             We would like  to  have feedback from those who  work with  or
          catalog these titles as  to  the effect of this approach on their
          internal catalogues.

          Since we hope to implement this recataloging quite soon  we would
          appreciate responses before the end of September.

          Please respond to:

          Maureen Landry
          Serial Record Division
          Library of Congress
          (202) 707 6428

                             email: landrymail.loc.gov