Regarding Bev Smith's question of changing cataloging treatment from
monograph to serial:

What is the nature of the publications being talked about?  And how many
are we talking about?

At Northwestern, we very rarely change a monograph to a serial without
cancelling the mono record.  In those cases where both mono and serial
records continue to exist, there is some noticeable change in the publication
itself; relationships between the records are then expressed in 580 fields.

I have difficulty accepting the argument that the mono records should be kept
to save time.  Unless the number of publications is very large, it shouldn't
be all that much work.  And the factor of user access is not a minor one at
all.  I think everything within reason should be done to get the user most
easily to all the information needed.  Making the user refer to an earlier or
later record for any reason other than a real title change should be avoided.

I'm not sure about the commercial version of NOTIS, but the Northwestern
installation has a fixed field element to control display/non-display in the
OPAC.  As soon as the serial record is ready, the monograph records can be
suppressed by means of this code, and the records deleted whenever time
permits.

Kevin M. Randall
Head, Serials Cataloging Section
Northwestern University Library