Peter -- This will be the last from me on the subject.  Serials Solutions can describe the records they supply in the way they works best for the customers.  I think where the original confusion lie was in the combining of "CONSER" and "neutral" (implying this was somehow a conser policy).

Steve Shadle/Serials Access Librarian  *****  shadle@u.washington.edu
University of Washington Libraries      ***     Phone: (206) 685-3983
Seattle, WA 98195-2900                   *        Fax: (206) 543-0854

On Mon, 5 May 2008, McCracken, Peter wrote:

> Yes, I agree; the format is *not* "neutral". The 300 for each of these records indicates the size of the publication, and as Regina pointed out, each record describes a specific format.
>
> Perhaps the best way to describe our "neutral" records is to say that they are print records that don't have a "Print" qualification to them the way online records do. But we felt a need to differentiate between these two types of records. The following records, for instance, have multiple formats, and we need to differentiate between them:
>
> "Aboriginal self-government" has the following records associated with it:
>  -- Print: lccn cn 00703510; OCLC 45133041; ISSN 1193-9656
>  -- Online: lccn cn 00471909; OCLC 45133030; ISSN 1495-5881
>  -- 'neutral': lccn cn 93071073; OCLC 28166488; ISSN 1193-9656
>
> "Air charter statistics" has the following records associated with it:
>  --  Print: lccn ce 99303536; OCLC 43833965; ISSN 0828-8208
>  --  Online: lccn ce 98470563; OCLC 40429672; ISSN 1480-8765
>  --  'neutral': lccn 86651674; OCLC 15020971; ISSN 0828-8208
>
> I found the same situation with "Adult correctional services in Canada," "Algebraic & geometric topology" (though the 'Print' record there is now marked for deletion), and I'm sure others exist.
>
> More importantly, though, librarians told us that they wanted us to respond in different ways when there were different types of print records. So we developed a way to do that. Perhaps, in retrospect, the term "neutral" is not a good one. I've certainly been spending time recently trying to ensure that we agree, internally, on various specific definitions, and I see how important accurate definitions are. I welcome ideas on what we should call these. We could say "print1" and "print2", since both types of records represent print, but then we have to remember which is which. We could use "print," "online," and "qwijybo," or another made-up term, but that would definitely cause confusion.
>
> If the collective community has a better term for these types of records, to better define and differentiate them from the print records that explicitly say that they're print, then I'm all ears.
>
> So, in conclusion, we *don't* describe or represent these as format neutral. They're print records that differ from the print records that are more explicit about it. We found a need to differentiate between the two types, and we used a term that occasionally causes confusion, but has worked reasonably well for us over the past six years that we have been delivering MARC records to libraries. If there are ways that we can do a better job of that, we're of course interested in doing so.
>
> Peter Mc
>
>
> Peter McCracken, MLS
> Co-founder & Director of Research, Serials Solutions
> peter@serialssolutions.com
> (607) 262-0941 - cell
>
> Company Address:                                     Mailing Address:
> 501 N. 34th Street, Suite 400                      P.O. Box 466
> Seattle, WA  98103                                    Trumansburg, NY  14886