Hi Gregory,

I'd suggest ignoring the volume numbering altogether.  Because of the
frequency, and lots of other factors, I'm sure, publishers make mistakes
like this one extremely frequently with newspapers.  I'd recommend
relying on the dates of the issues for check-in, payment, and holdings
purposes; they'll be more reliable and have far fewer errors than the
enumeration.

I'm sure everyone who has done even a little newspaper cataloging could
recount dozens of stories of remarkably messed up numbering on
newspapers.  That's why the United States Newspaper Program's cataloging
guidelines recommend (or maybe just imply - I can't remember at the
moment and I'm not at work to check) that enumeration be used only when
trying to determine the beginning and ending of a title, its relationship
to other titles, suspensions and resumptions, identification of concurrent
editions if other information is not sufficient, etc.

The USNP Cataloging and Union List Manual is very direct in its instruction
not to use numbering for holdings records for newspapers. Of course,
those instructions are intended of holdings records in the US Newspaper
Union List on OCLC, and those records generally do not give details of
current holdings.  This method would work perfectly well, though for check-
in, payment, and more detailed holdings records in local systems, too.
It would also save time and hassles when enumeration is wrong.

Also, because of the frequency or errors with numbering, such ocurrences
are usually noted in 515 notes only in extreme cases.  Otherwise, it would be
common for bib records for newspapers to have dozens of 515 notes taking
up 10 or more screens.

I've worked in two libraries than ignored numering on newspapers for
everything except 362-type concerns, and things worked perfectly well.

Steve Savage
Manager, Michigan Newspaper Project
Library of Michigan

On Tue, 27 Feb 1996, Gregory Szczyrbak wrote:

> Does anyone know what is going on with the issue numbers for USA today.
> The Fri/Sat/Sun issue was labelled v. 14, no. 113.  The Mon. issue was
> also labelled v. 14, no. 113. I was hoping today's issue would be back to
> normal, but it reads v. 14, no. 114.  It should be no. 115.  Any
> information will be greatly appreciated.  ....