Serials In Bobcat

Why They Are The Way They Are

I. Because of the nature of serials:

• they are on-going
• they change title, frequency, and issuing body
• they die and resurrect
• we subscribe, cancel, resubscribe
• they come in multiple formats: print vs micro vs electronic format (and our holdings for each format often varies)
• they come in a variety of flavors:
  • magazine
  • "advances in ..."
  • unanalyzed monographic series
  • analyzed monographic series

As a result, in order to understand a serial, you have to look in three places to identify publishing history and local holdings

II. Because of automation:

• quick, high-volume effort to convert 20,000 serial titles in 1985-1986
• the migration from GLIS to ADVANCE in 1994
  • copysets attached to wrong records
  • copysets migrated even for dead serials
  • receipt information transferred in different form from current pattern
  • dead serials that had never been checked-in on GLIS migrated without copysets and with a status of "Not checked out" instead of "Non-circulating"
  • subsequent new releases of ADVANCE
• difficulties implementing automatic claiming
• three Geac modules are involved in processing: acquisitions, serials, and cataloging and
  the three determine BobCat displays
  • Timing of subscription cancellation with receipt of last piece with updating summary holdings statement; further complicated by our serials pre-payment policy

III. Because of local policies:

• circulating vs non-circulating-- practice varies from library to library
• one-record approach vs separate records for micro and electronic versions
• "Received" vs "bound" status for issues published in bound form--inconsistent
• adding copysets for locations that do not do check-in and for dead serials
• "LTSP" subject headings
• commitment to follow national policies and standards:
  • uniform titles
  • successive entry vs latest-title entry for serial title changes
• commitment to contribute records to RLIN and OCLC, so must satisfy their requirements
• BobCat OPAC Display Group policies

IV. Because BobCat is a union catalog for 10 libraries' holdings:

• we have 42,098 serial records in BobCat
• each library's subscription history differs--and differ from format to format
• most libraries do on-line check-in but they started at different times and some still do not use the check-in module (copyset vs no copyset)
• check-in for commonly-held titles offers great opportunity for error
• variant data-input practices can creep in