5 August 2003

Dear Shana,

I'm not a Serials Librarian per se, but I am Chief
of Government Documents here at the City College of
New York. I've run into situations such as you
describe more than once with Gov Docs ... Federal
Agencies seem to delight in doing/permitting
odd things done to their serial docs.

Federal Agencies are always merging, splitting,
changing their names, adding departments, merging
departments, changing just one word in the title,
going from annual to biannual to monthly and back to
annual again, changing their SuDoc number, etc.,
etc., etc. ... it can make you want to run away
and join the circus :>)

Here's what I do ...

My basic concern is making it easy for the
patron to find whatever it is that they are
looking for.

In addition, my personal experience on the public
service side is that patrons just do not look at
more than one record for an item. So even if you
have separate records for a microfiche version,
a print version and an online version of a doc,
patrons will, almost always, just look at the
first record they come to.

So, as long as the document is essentially the
same, I put all my Gov Doc serial holdings for a
title on one record, irregardless of the format,
minor changes in title, changes in SuDoc number, etc.

So in this case, I would deep-six the online record
and put all the holdings together in one record.

I add lots of 500 General Notes in the Bib record
to spell out any changes/variations and in this
case I would add a 500 Note that the publisher for
issues/years such-and-such is Bernan.

I also create separate holdings records for
each variation, in this case I'd have one for
print by the NLM, one for print by Bernan and one
for the online issues. This way all the information
about this item is in one place and the patron
sees it all together.

I also write lots of of z-field Public Notes
and would add one in this case that issues from
2002 onwards are published by Bernan.

Unless I'm writing a mystery, I don't believe in
making my patrons hunt for clues!

Kind regards,
Grace-Ellen

Grace-Ellen McCrann
Chief, Government Documents Division
The City College of New York
Cohen Library, NAC Building, Room 2/305
138th Street & Convent Avenue
New York, NY 10031
(212) 650 5073
gemscot@yahoo.com

---------------------------
--- "Shana L. McDanold" <mcdanold@SLU.EDU> wrote:
I'm writing for help.  I've never encountered
this particular problem before and I'm not sure what
to do with it.  I can't find anything in the rules
about this one.

The title is List of serials indexed for online
users.  According to the OCLC record (#9199853;
DLC#84-649762) the title ceased publication in
print in 2000 and became online only (OCLC#45556198;
DLC#00-220224).

Presumably the National Library of Medicine stopped
issuing a paper edition; they are now made available
in PDF.  Simple enough.  The problem is that I have
a 2002 *print* edition in my hands and according
to our records, we have a 2003 edition and withdrew
a 2001 edition.

There are no other records for print editions of
this title in OCLC other than a previous title.

The publisher on the 2002 edition is different.  On
the t.p. verso are various notes and a printing date.
Two of the notes read:
    "Published by Bernan, a division of the Kraus
Organization Limited."
    "As a service to its customers, Bernan issues
print versions of
selected U.S. Government publications that are
otherwise primarily made
available by the issuing agencies only in electronic
form.  Bernan does
not claim copyright in U.S. government information."

So, what do I do with it?  Should we open back up
the print record and add a note about the change in
publisher?  Or is a new record warranted?

The problem I see with a new record is that other
than the publisher, it's the same publication with
the same title.

Since there is a record for the online edition,
should a note be added that it is also made
available in print by said publisher (i.e. the
single-record format in reverse)?

My supervisor and the senior serials librarian are
stumped on this one.

Any help would be appreciated.

Did anyone else encounter this problem or something
like it?  How did you handle it?

Thanks,
Shana McDanold

--
Shana L. McDanold
Serials Cataloger
Pius XII Memorial Library
Saint Louis University
E-mail: mcdanold@slu.edu

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