What we did before classifying our serials, is to shelve by the official title of the journal. We made up "dummy" books with a see reference to the official shelving location. The dummies would be shelved where the common name for the journal would have been found.

This system seemed to work very well. (This was when I was at our campus law library.)

Daniel Hoyte,  M.R.S.
Senior Library Systems Technician
Leatherby Libraries, Chapman University
(714) 532-7745
hoyte@chapman.edu
AIM/Yahoo IM: chaphoyte
The cake is a not a lie, however, the lie is cake.
       -Portal existentialist

-----Original Message-----
From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Beth Shively Wages
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 9:31 AM
To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: [SERIALST] Shelving organization

My library is in the process of cleaning up and reevaluating our serials
collection. The collection is stored alphabetically in one location. We
currently have a few journals shelved by their initials (for example, JAMA),
with the rest shelved by full name. My concern is that using both could
potentially be confusing for students.

My question to the forum is about how those of you with alphabetized
collections handle shelving location for journals that are known by their
initials, either officially or unofficially. Do you shelve by initials to
use a more commonly known name, or by official journal title to maintain
consistency?

I'm relatively new to this position and don't know if there is any common
school of thought.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide!

Beth Shively Wages
Serials Specialist
Lee and Jim Vann Library
University of Saint Francis
eshively@sf.edu