---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 13:49:20 EDT
From: Enrique E. Gildemeister <EEGLC%CUNYVM.bitnet@uvmvm.uvm.edu>
Subject: Re: newspapers (Ted Rogers)

I dug into my bibliographic tools and found the Newspaper Cataloging and
Union Listing Manual, for the United States Newspaper Program. They use
the ISO definition, and then give "This definition includes ..." and
"This definition excludes:

Newsletter publications that are intended to report only news of a particular
organization or institution, or that are specifically limited to coverage
of a business, industry, craft, market, etc.

At New York University between 1984 and 1987 we did a retrospective
serials cataloging project, and we hung the definitions in our cubicles and
on the walls by our desks. The ethnic publications in foreign languages
we always did as newspapers. We did some preservation filming of reams of
newspapers in our "newspaper morgue" that were not only in foreign languages
but were of general interest even though the publications were the official
organs of political parties or trade unions; we considered them newspapers.
The ones we excluded from the definition were trade union tabloids that
had some general news but in the context of how it involved workers.

Those of us "in the trenches" cataloging all this stuff didn't know that
NYU had applied for a grant to film and catalog New York State newspapers.
We asked whether they meant "newspapers" as they have been defined in the
standard or whether union tabloids were included. We got blank looks, and
the answer, "you know, newspapers!" We pursued it further up the hierarchy.
We contacted the funding agency -- nobody knew, we went higher and higher
up the decision-making hierarchy. We always got the answer, "You know,
newspapers!" At that time actually, we referred to excluded publications
as being "in newspaper format, but not newspapers according to the CONSER
definition". (I have to say, I *think* it involved CONSER, I don't remember).

What finally happened was we applied the grant, I think,to anything that looked
like a newspaper. We still coded the serial type as "p" not "n". The point
I'm trying to bring out is that these definitions cause people to do a lot
of pondering. We did however see one union tabloid done as part of the News-
paper project. Anyway, I like the amplification of the definition given
on p. iv-v of the Manual.  I've already given the "excludes"; I'll give you
the "includes":

*All general interest newspapers mainly reporting events that have occurred
within the 24-hour periodbefore going to press.

*Non-daily general interest newspapers which provide news covering a longer
period of time, but which owing to their local origin or for other reasons,
provide their readers with a primary source of general information.

*Daily and non-daily newspapers that contain news and information on the
basis of an ethnic, racial, cultureal or national group.

*Newspapers produced by the alternative press, if they provide their readers
with a primary source of general news on current events.

*Newspapers serving a military community such as an airbase or military post
when they carry news of current events of general interest to a particular
community.

_The Newspaper cataloging and union listing manual_ I have is dated 1990.
Hope this info. helps.

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* Rick Gildemeister                                               *
* Head of Cataloging/OCLC Enhance Coordinator                     *
* Lehman College, CUNY                                            *
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