I'm a little slow replying to this, but I decided to go ahead
anyway.  The way I decide on whether a title should be cataloged as a
serial or separate monographic titles is by looking at what the
subject headings would be.  If it looks like the subject headings are
going to be pretty much the same for each volume, then I catalog it
as a serial with the entries for the titles (so that they are still
searchable, of course).  If it looks like the subject headings are
going to be fairly different for each volume, then they get cataloged
separately.  Since many serials with distinctive titles are cataloged
both ways, it is really up to the cataloger.  You just need to
establish what criteria you want to use for making that decision.

Hope this helps,

Susan Andrews
********************************************************************************
At 01:10 PM 8/24/2006, you wrote:
>Good morning!
>
>I've been noticing serial records that include 246 12 for the distinctive
>titles. Is this the preferred way to deal with distinctive titles in
>serials?  It seems to me that if you want the distinctive title, you would
>catalog each volume separately and add a 440.
>
>Example: #39226063 Title: Sociology of crime, law, and deviance
>This is a particularly difficult example, because the first two volumes do
>not have distinctive titles, but the rest of the volumes do have distinctive
>titles. I'm trying to decide which way to go ... whether  to catalog them on
>the serial record or the monographic records, both of which, of course,
>exist on OCLC.
>
>Thanks kindly,
>Julie Moore
>
>
>Julie Renee Moore
>Catalogue Librarian
>California State Univ., Fresno
>julie_moore@csufresno.edu
>julie.renee.moore@gmail.com
>559.278.5813
>"Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them."
>--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Susan Andrews
Head, Serials Librarian
Texas A&M University-Commerce
P.O. Box 3011
Commerce, TX 75429-3011
Susan_Andrews@tamu-commerce.edu
(903)886-5733
"Your Success Is Our Business"