I would like to thank Vikki Medaglia for mentioning my recent contribution
to the discussion of latest vs. successive entry. The idea regarding
problems with union lists was not originally mine; I must give Crystal
Graham credit for explaining it to me a while back. She and I worked
together several years and has contributed greatly to the understanding
of serial records and serials cataloging.

I view serial records as having similar structure as authority records, so
I liked the use of the word "flip". Another analogy is this: the adoption
of AACR2 and the scrapping of LC superimposition of forms of headings
wreaked havoc because it was done when the technology was not ready to cope
with it. I think we'd better be ready to handle the fallout, if we decide
to go back to latest entry cataloging. Will it only create chaos and cost
a lot of money to implement; and what about retrospective conversion?
Is the existing technology ready? Can we afford it? How long should we
wait? We'd better be very careful; we've gotten quite comfortable with
successive entry cataloging, and, as I pointed out in a recent posting
to SERIALST, we're learning how to be less literal, are creating fewer
micro-title-changes that make no sense, and are finding creative, often radical
solutions when necessary. Whatever we decide to do, we must hold on to the
concept of master record (OCLC, CONSER?) which can be readily accessed and
serve as an authoritative record for practicing librarians handling serials
collections.

Rick Gildemeister
Cataloger/OCLC Enhance Coordinator (and SERophile!)
Lehman College of the City University of New York