Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 15:28:35 -0500
From: "Kevin M. Randall" <kmr@NWU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Enumeration question (Mitch Turitz)

At 01:19 PM 9/18/97 -0500, Mitch Turitz wrote:
>  I decided to take an unscientific survey (due to lack of time) of some of
>the more widely used serial/periodical indexes in our reference collection
>(Reader's Guide, Chem abstracts, CD-ROM indexes, etc.).  To my surprise,
>even when searching for foreign language articles, I would find the
>references to the articles either with no designator for the enumeration
>(e.g.  25:4) or else just the English form (e.g. v.25 no.4 pp14-22) even if
>the entire periodical is in a foreign language!  So far, our patrons have
>not been complaining about this apparent discrepancy.

Mitch:  When I saw your earlier post, I had thought about replying to tell
you that I had done a similar check a couple of years ago.  If I had posted
that reply, it might have saved you some work, I guess; on the other hand,
it can be seen as validation of results by replicating the experiment ...
Just like you, I was surprised at what I found.  Sometimes even periods were
lacking in the captions (e.g. v25 n4), and basically within a single
database all captions were identical.  It appears as if numbers are entered
into fields and the captions are supplied by programs (hmmm, just like using
the paired fields in USMARC for Holdings!).

>  Now for the suprising part:  at our serials meeting, I told the group,
>which includes a public services representative who initially objected to
>us using the  designator of the original language, all of my findings and
>opinions, he no longer objected to us using the language of the original
>enumeration, "as long as it does not cause confusion for our patrons."

That is surprising, because it seems your data would have strengthened his
original position!

>  So our solution is:  We will put in the enumeration of the original into
>our summary holdings and check-in records, until we hear of complaints.
>Hopefully, we will not.

When we were preparing for implementing ANSI Z39.44 three years ago, one of
the sticky points was whether or not to change to vernacular caption on the
spine label and what to do about earlier holdings.  For the main library, we
decided to just start using the vernacular caption with the next volume, and
earlier volumes would stay as they are.  This did not apply to monographic
series, however; some people thought people would be confused seeing some
vols. designated one way and other vols. another way (I don't know why it
should be any more confusing with monographic series than with other serials).

I can't recall hearing of any complaints from the public regarding the
captions used.  The only complaints I seem to hear are from technical staff
wondering how to abbreviate certain terms or dealing with some publications'
tendency to vary their captions.

(Complaints I *do* hear from public services folks are that not all the
holdings are showing up.  That's because we implemented ANSI holdings at the
same time as the NOTIS MHLD record, which has a (rather short) display limit
in the version we're using; long MHLD records are much more common now
because the ANSI holdings standard makes for much longer statements than we
had been using--even when collapsed as much as possible.  Of couse this is
totally unrelated to the caption problem, except when the vernacular caption
is significantly longer than its English equivalent and thus causes an even
longer MHLD record...)

Kevin M. Randall
Head, Serials Cataloging Section
Northwestern University Library
Evanston, IL   60208-2300

email: kmr@nwu.edu
phone: (847) 491-2939
fax:   (847) 491-7637