It is time for me to send my promised summary to serialst reporting on the results of my previous query concerning the indexing of serials linking fields in online catalogs. My two questions were as follows: --Has any library made a conscious decision to use (or not) linking fields as access points in the online catalog? If so which ones and why? Are you happy with the decision?` --Has anyone devised a way to use the control numbers in linking fields in some other way to improve access to serial records? Is any processing recommended for these so that they can be manipulated in some future, more sophisticated environment? Before I provide a summary, I must confess I do so rather sadly, because the decision my campus (UNC-Chapel Hill) arrived at was the one our main library strongly opposed, which was that all the linking fields proposed by anyone for indexing in our brand-new system (762, 770, 772, 773, 780, 785, and 787) be indexed. My sheaves of printouts from serialst, most favoring minimal or no linking entry indexing, brought to the committee deciding such matters (of which I am not a member) were of no avail. Our medical library, joined by our special collections cataloger and one of our law librarians, carried the day. I am going to give some background because it is clear from the responses that our experiences would be useful to some others. My initial confession that our serials cataloging unit is actually deleting linking fields in order not to have them cluttering our retrieval may have been an unfortunate distraction from the real question. I heartily agreed with all the respondents who urged the benefits of these fields per se, and I answered some of them personally, explaining that if only these fields were left unindexed, we would happily retain them all! The question is this: If we own __College & research libraries__ and __College & research libraries news, do we want the reader searching the title "college & research libraries" to see a screen that reads College & research libraries College & research libraries news or a screen that reads College & research libraries College & research libraries news College & research libraries news College & research libraries ? On the other hand, if we didn't own the C.r.l. news, would we want the screen to read College & research libraries College & research libraries news or simply, College & research libraries? (Another suggested solution, displaying the 245 and not the 772, would give, in the second case, two entries reading College & research libraries, retrieving the same record. (The keyword user would have even more fun, since on keying in college research libraries, he or she would retrieve also the same titles with the addition of variants with __and__ instead of ampersand; a question for another day! Our argument was that anyone wishing to let users retrieve extra titles has an entirely legitimate option of doing so by means of entering added entry fields for them, in this case, 730's. This procedure, in the imperfect world of information retrieval, gives catalogers a choice instead of tying their hands. (Some of our committee members disliked the extra work; others treated removing any possibilities like some ultimate cataloging sin.) Probably the most ultimate of the ultimate sins was the prospect of giving the searcher of the unowned College & research libraries news no retrieval at all--which need not happen, of course, if one provides the 730 for it, too, on its parent record. Former titles and later titles were a little more knotty, since there is no real precedent for using added entry fields for these--is there? Our new system, and at least one other system mentioned by respondents, has a "related works" function which does index those titles, and the user is prompted to enter a command to retrieve them as soon as a record is displayed. We favored relying on this function because users __can__ learn to use it, and it had the virtue of showing on the index screen the very title that would be displayed. Again, the prospect of null retrieval if a title was not owned was chilling to some; but we thought clearer information in 90% of cases outweighed the dangers of giving no information in 10% of cases at most--when information might only mislead, anyway. We had a lot of dismissing of my examples as "worst- case scenarios", but one need think only of Atlantic/Atlantic monthly/Atlantic monthly magazine, or Saturday review in its various epochs, or newspapers with their changing regional editions, scientific journals with changing sections-- hundreds of others that anyone out there could name as well as I. Country reports, right? I urge serials and systems people, and vendors, to give this matter some thought. What would be a genuine system solution to this problem? One message suggested that an indicator be provided for the cataloger's decision to make an added entry or not. What about suppressing display of the same record more than once on the same screen, from any access point? Now to the summary to Question 1: I received 10 responses to my question; 11 and 12 also answered another question from SUNY-Syracuse. 1. Yes, as related works only--happy (Universite de Montreal) 2. 765, 767, 780, 785, and happy (Occidental College) 3. None, and happy (University of Kentucky) 4. None, and happy (Yale Divinity School) 5. None, and happy (University of Victoria, B.C.) 6. Yes, but not happy; displays title retrieved instead of linking entry on index screen, which improves somewhat (Santa Clara University) 7. Especially likes 773, 780-785; but only if much programming is done to improve display--displays title retrieved, not linking field; system enables making added entries for other fields (Lakehead University, Ont.) 8. All, but would prefer only 780-785 (Hamilton College) 9. All, and happy because of collocation benefits (University of Chicago) 10. Previous and later title, considers this important because it provides link between titles shelved alphabetically (SUNY-Syracuse) 11. Agreed with this, but restricted to 780-785 (Lakehead Univ.) 12. Agreed also (San Francisco State) but noted that reference librarians objected to retrieving a title they did not key in. Question 2 excited some interest, but the only positive response was from Lakehead University; Lynn Barber, correct me if I'm wrong--MultiLis checks the control number within a linking entry against the database to see if the linked title is held before displaying it in the index. MultiLis is also willing to pursue other modes of serials access from these fields. Thanks so much to all who responded! Frieda Rosenberg Serials Cataloging University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill FRIEDAR@UNC.BITNET Phone: 919-962-2050