Some time ago, I and most of my fellow subject librarians discontinued printed serials lists, under the impression that our new integrated system could produce them as reports, but it was never possible to get adequate complete reports.

To a considerable extent, sfx and its associated e-journal finder has resolved this situation, and other products can do the same.  They remain limited in dealing with extensive paper holdings.  Searching for periodical titles in an onine catalog,  especially when there are complicated title changes, is in my opinion beyond what we can expect of ordinary library users, and I have seen many mistakes made even by trained librarians. I consider this the result of both the deficiencies of present online systems and the inherent deficiencies
of successive-title cataloging.

The biggest mistake I ever made as a librarian was discontinuing the maintenance of my printed list.

Dr. David Goodman
formerly:
Princeton University Library
now:
Palmer School of Library and Information Science, LIU

dgoodman@princeton.edu