Top 5 annoyances for serials for 2009

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me... Oops. Wrong season. Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, publishers are not sweet...

5) Changing formats and making the new one useless to libraries. (2 examples come to mind -- one has gone to pdf editions that will be emailed to the subscribers and the other is one that has gone to biweekly digital "updates" that require a single username and password)

4) Changing publication schedules from a regular one to an irregular one (This one is a newspaper that went from daily to "occassional" with no set pattern!)

3) One publisher selling all of its journals and content to another publisher and making the old content near to impossible to get to during the "transfer."

2) Size changes for no apparent reason and improvement in quality

But the number 1 annoyance for 2009 serials is... (drum roll...)

1) Publishers or editors that do not understand the REASON for Roman Numerals was for a "shorthand" and a "standardized" way of counting. Hence, XXXXVI does not exist. 3 X's in a row is the maximum. Weird versions of a number are also annoying -- hence "XLX" is mere nonsense. Yes, it does equal out to "50" if you do the math, but there is a REASON that "L" was put into the system!

I'm thinking Psalms are too complex a literary form for this publishing group. Maybe I can come up with a Limerick for March.

Magazine makeovers and new editors

Anytime I get a letter from a publication that says something about a new editor or a new direction, I cringe. I cringe because I know what will be next -- a makeover, a name change, a format change, a new publisher, a size change and occassionally spin off titles with new issns.

It seems to be the season for makeovers. A couple of our journals have converted to online-only this year. A couple of our journals have changed sizes in the MIDDLE of the volume, which is a problem for binding purposes. An entire collection of our journals was purchased from one publisher to another and is changing where they are going to be available online. And then there is the publisher that has issued an oversized magazine since it was created and just this week decided to change sizes, its layout and went from staples to perfect binding...

I just wonder, at times like this, if the publishers have ever heard the phrase "if it ain't broken, don't fix it?"

Size changes of issues

I am sure there are good reasons for changing the physical size of a serial. Normally, this is a not an issue. :) However, those publishers who change sizes during the middle of a volume create havoc. Then the issue will not display in a stack very well. It causes minor problems when binding as well. And sometimes the format or layout is changed sufficiently that it complicates trying to find something in the newer issues. And then there are always the publishers that change sizes for one or two issues and then revert back to the original size -- causing a whole another set of nightmares.