At 10:34 AM 11/16/2006, Shankle, Jean wrote:
>When you have a periodical title that has had more than one title
>change, and all the title changes are listed on the marc record, is
>there a certain defined order they are supposed to go in or does it
>matter (the original to the most recent or reverse)?  The current title
>is in 245 and the former titles are in multi 246's.

What you are describing is latest entry cataloging, the ALA standard from
1949 until the publication of AACR in 1967 (although Library of Congress
continued using latest entry until 1971).  In latest entry, the current
title is in field 245, and the former titles are in field 247 (not
246).  Although the MARC 21 definition for field 247 does not give any
instructions on sequencing multiple 247 fields, the CONSER guidelines state
that they should be arranged from earliest to latest (according to the
dates given in subfield $f).  This is probably most important when the
"Title varies" notes in the OPAC are generated from the 247 fields instead
of a 547 note.  (If notes aren't being generated from the 247 fields, then
it won't matter in the OPAC, although having them in ascending
chronological order may be useful to people reading the record in a MARC
tagged display.)

But be aware that if you are cataloging according to AACR2, you need to use
successive entry cataloging, and create a new record each time the
publication has a "major change" in title.  If there is a "minor change", a
new record is not created but the variant is put into field 246, and field
245 retains the title appearing on the earliest issue that the record
represents.  Of course, if your records are purely local in nature (and not
going to be shared with other libraries--e.g., by being entered into
WorldCat) then you can use whatever method is best in your context.  (We
did that for about 11 years at Northwestern.)

Kevin M. Randall
Head of Serials Cataloging
Northwestern University Library
1970 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL  60208-2300
email: kmr@northwestern.edu
phone: (847) 491-2939
fax:   (847) 491-4345