Name change and enumeration

OK. Editors are not the most logical people in the world, anyone who works in the serials world knows that.

However, if you change the title, the size and the issn of a serial, shouldn't you also change the numbering or at least start a new volume?

Journal "G" was a title that just "transitioned" to a new title, more pages and a new issn. But, the editors decided to keep going with the volume and numbers from the old title.

So, now I have two records that are going to be fun to deal with. Journal "G" now has volume 53 nos. 1-8 (January-August) 2008. And, now, we have the new title -- Journal "E" -- which has a different layout, a different scope, a different number of pages per issue, different issn and new title -- but has volume 53 nos. 9-12 in 2008.

Luckily enough, we don't bind this title -- which would have been a real nightmare to do! However, we do receive it on microfiche and I'm struggling how to figure out to alert the patron that the last 4 issues of that volume are shelved somewhere entirely different (we shelve microfiche alphabetically and do not keep name changes together).

If the patron should look in the OPAC for the record, there are 780 fields that tell them "continues" and "continued by"....but most of the times patrons are here on weekends and are simply "browsing" through a title on fiche or not sure which card it is on and pull a stack to look through on the viewer.

Numbering systems

I know I have blogged about numbering systems before...but... Can someone tell me the point of having the volume, number and whole number plus the date all for enumeration? Or for continuing to use two numbering systems for more than a century (e.g. Old Series Volume and Number, plus New Series Volume and Number)? Or for just abandoning all numbering and changing to month and year only (without any notice, of course)? And is there any sensible reason to change a publishing schedule in the middle of the volume, but with the same numbering but different chronology (thus making predictions and MARC records near to impossible!)? Do the publishers make rational decisions on these things or is it at the whim of the newest editor du jour? "Inquiring minds want to know...." (if you grew up in the 1980's you'll recognize the reference to bad tv commercials for the National Enquirer)

Editors, Publishers and Numbering

There must be a place in the universe somewhere that editors gather and conspire on making arbitrary changes to serials that will frustrate library workers. It would amuse me to be able to work for a publisher for 6 months or so to see if decisions really are carefully thought out or completely arbitrary in some cases.

One case that comes to mind is the weekly magazine that changed publishers and decided to start over with volume 1 at that point. The magazine got so many complaints about this decision (from libraries) that after volume 3 it went back to the old numbering as if volumes 1 through 3 never existed and there had been continuous numbering all along (it was on volume 176 when it changed publishers and went to volume 180 right after year 3). I can imagine what a mess this made for catalogers since it certainly made trying to get the MARC records to display correctly in the ILS a challenge.

Another journal, this time in the science field, that caused great concern was one that just dropped all numbering and chronology altogether. After 3 or 4 months the publisher did put the chronology back onto the cover, but it made it hard to check in an item that had no enumeration and no chronology! The journal editor did write a piece in one of the issues about why the change was made -- to make the journal appear current no matter when someone picked it up.