Rolfe Gjellstad raises a good point. The former assistant chief of the
Serial Record Division, Dorothy Glasby, told me about the discussions that
were held in the Bibliographic Problems Group, that they had considered
abandoning uniform titles for serials completely. I think you run into
problems, though, if you include serials with generic titles. I'm
pretty sure she didn't mean those. However, what Rolfe said about computer
capabilities is true.

This morning, a message from Regina R. Reynolds of LC was distributed on
SERIALST.  She has produced a first draft of the sections of RI 25.5B
that relate to our discussion. An open meeting of cataloging supervisors and
catalogers will be held next week to discuss the draft. She says she will
keep the List posted. She will be the LC liaison to the Committee to Study
Serials Cataloging at Midwinter.

Crystal's points are very important. I truly hope that we address them in
the Midwinter discussion. I will, and I'm sure others who like to take the
long view (like picky ol' me, believe it or not) will, too.

Just before the triple message came through, someone I know from AUTOCAT
posted something that was uncannily like what Florence posted.  I'm posting
this reply mostly to acknowledge the views that have been expressed.  This
is wonderful!  I'm seeing lots of points of view and looking at them
them with interest.  As Crystal knows about me, I can still say that
it's important to me that LC or *someone* settle this all and give us
a clear RI to follow.  I'm not a robot, but I like structure, sometimes
for no other reason than to deviate from it!  No, anyway, I liked my
proposed RI and it looks like things are really a lot less cut-and-dried
than I had thought.  I'm learning a lot just from this process.

Sincerely,
Rick Gildemeister
Cataloger/OCLC Enhance Coordinator
Lehman College of the City University of New York