Thanks to everyone who responded to my query about the duplicate
volume numbering of Design News.  If anyone else is curious, I
had two people say that thay had called the publisher and the
explanation given was that they wanted vol. 50 to coincide with
the 50th anniversary of publication, but they miscalculated which
year they would reach that vol. number, so they repeated vol. 49.

("The publisher is my tormentor,...)

Some people distinguished between 1993 and 1994 by assigning
vol designations 49A and 49B, or 49 (1993) and 49A (1994)

Thanks!
Sarah Tusa
tusa@lub002.lamar.edu