Deciding whether to catalog separately or together really depends on the
materials and how they will be used in your library. I think Julie's
impression that going with the serial record is the preferred way is
because most of the time, you are going to shelve them all together as a
set, so one record makes sense.

I would only go with separate records if they are on wildly different
topics that nobody would expect to be grouped together under the serial
title, or if each volume has a different author, or some other
difference that is important to my patrons.

Of course,  I'm not dealing with unique materials or special
collections, like Mr. Wolfe is. 'Hope this helps!

Judith Stokes, Serials Librarian
James P. Adams Library
Rhode Island College
Providence, RI 02908-1991
(401)456-8165
JStokes@RIC.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
[mailto:SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU] On Behalf Of Wolfe, S. J.
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 8:12 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] Distinctive serials titles

I currently handle distinctive serials titles in pre-1900 records with a
monograph record for the distinctive title and a serial record (or
records) for the entire serial, linking them with 773 and 774 fields.

Cordially,
SJ Wolfe

S.J. Wolfe
Senior Cataloguer and Serials Specialist
American Antiquarian Society
and
Chief Librarian, Republic of Boon Island
mailto:swolfe@mwa.org
http://home.earthlink.net/~perseshen