Re: Newsweek & end-of-year combined issues (3 messages) Birdie MacLennan 21 Mar 1997 00:09 UTC
3 messages, 101 lines: (1)------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 09:00:14 -0900 From: Freya Anderson <anfna@UAA.ALASKA.EDU> Subject: Re: Newsweek (v. 129 #1 ???) After reading Tim Lawrence's reply to Kevin Randall's message, I had to add my two cents! Firstly, if there is something that bothers us, it's perfectly valid for us to complain, even if it only affects libraries. If enough people complain and are heard, something will be done. If not, it won't. But you don't know the outcome until you try. Secondly, there are more problems than trying to deal with automated systems. We still use a Kardex, so checking in these items may not be as neat, but it's not a problem. We run into difficulties, though, when it comes to binding. Deciding which volume to put the double issue in and how to label the spine are a couple of biggies. Even if title in question is received on microfilm, labelling is a problem, and confusion for the patrons ensues. Freya Anderson anfna@uaa.alaska.edu Serials Clerk phone:(907)786-4627 University of Alaska Anchorage fax: (907)786-6050 Consortium Library ******Life's uncertain...eat dessert first!!***** On Thu, 20 Mar 1997, Tim Lawrence wrote: > Kevin M. Randall <kmr@nwu.edu> wrote: > >I have been noticing an increasing trend for journals to combine the last > >number of a volume with the first number of the next volume, and it is very > >disturbing. Does anyone have any idea of how we can broadcast our extreme > >displeasure about this? > > I find this annoying as well, but how is it our business to criticize this? > It makes sense to howl about bad title changes, because these are bad for > everybody in the end, including publishers and subscribers. But end of year > combined issues are for the most part awkward only to us. And by far the > biggest reason they are awkward is that our automated prediction systems > aren't designed to handle them, and that's nobody's trouble but ours. > Patrons might find such citations irritating enough to just skip sometimes, > but this isn't going to hurt a major popular weekly. > > Tim Lawrence Northern Kentucky University > Serials Assistant Steely Library Serials/Periodicals > lawrencet@nku.edu (2)---------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 12:50:22 -0600 From: "Kevin M. Randall" <kmr@NWU.EDU> Subject: Re: Newsweek (v. 129 #1 ???) I think it is our business to criticize the practice, if we are subscribing to the journals. We're customers, not just disinterested bystanders. Awkward numbering practices affect the processing of the materials and also the retrieval of information further down the road. (Thanks to Mike Beier for elaborating on this in another posting.) This affects nearly every library in the country, for titles like the Newsweek/Time twins (competitors which have to copy everything the other does), their nearly identical siblings, and others who jump on the weird year-end numbering bandwagon. Kevin M. Randall Head, Serials Cataloging Section Northwestern University Library Evanston, IL 60208-2300 email: kmr@nwu.edu phone: (847) 491-2939 **New Area Code!** fax: (847) 491-7637 (3)--------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 11:30:39 -0700 From: kathleen <kathleen@SJSUVM1.SJSU.EDU> Organization: San Jose State University Subject: Re: Newsweek & end-of-year combined issues I strongly agree with Mike Beier and Kevin Randall (hi, Kevin!), and I do think it is very much our place to point out the problems to publishers who combine last issue of one volume with first issues of the next -- many times the publisher per se is not the one making the decision, but rather the editor of that particular title. If the editor does not have the background of a librarian, (s)he may be blissfully unaware there is any problem with such a publication decision. There is a big difference between raising holy heaven and informing a publisher of a problem -- this publication pattern is a point that should perhaps be raised with the publisher in the manner that Mitch Turitz has written about this past year: give the publisher the concrete example(s), the problems that it causes, and request that the publisher give some attention to the solution in the best interest of both publisher and libraries. After all, we're all in this business together, and through NASIG many of us librarians know many of the publisher reps or editors, and through the years have agreed that we can indeed work together. Sounds rather Pollyanna-ish, I know, and I don't mean it to be so: maybe I'm mellowing! Kathleen Thorne Serials Cataloger/Librarian San Jose State University kathleen@sjsuvm1.sjsu.edu