Thank you Jan Anderson for your comment that you don't find it surprising
or out of place for a serials manager to be asking for help in
explaining our domain to folks outside the serials constituency.
SERIALST was set up for exactly this sort of thing.

While it is heartening to realize that there are many of us in the
serials world who have quick access to text book definitions, does it
really come as a surprise that there are some folks who work in the
libraries (i.e., acquistions, reference, et al. depts.) and in other
areas of the serials world (i.e., vendors, publishers, et al.) who
do not have the need, occasion, or desire to refer to AACR2 in their
day-to-day routines and activities?

Susan Mower is a very competent and capable part of our Serials Acquisitions
staff who fully cooperates with the Serials Catalogers on a daily basis
(and makes our job infinitely smoother, I might add), but generally leaves
the rules, interpretations, and fine-tunings to the Cataloging Dept. --
where they belong.  Her presentation was part of an informal and on-going
"Open House" series, which we feature once a month for staff of the UVM
Libraries/Media Center.  The presentations are offered to all interested staff
and faculty members to give an overview of each department (in this case,
Acquisitions) --  a way for each dept. to "show and tell" interested
folks what they do and how they do it.  The presentations are intended
to be light, informal, and informative.  'Nuff said?

Birdie MacLennan
SERIALST Owner / Serials Cataloger
University of Vermont