Enumeration....and publication statement

Ok. There is a journal I've had problems with for the past couple of years. It often combines issues in the middle of a volume (a problem for me because I bind the title and the issues are usually combined across the months that I bind -- messing up my pattern!). Now, though, is has this to say in its publication statement:"_____ Libraries is published 10 times yearly by the ALA"! and then -- it does not say what months it omits. No problem, right? So, why do I have issue 11 in hand? and it looks like their might be an issue number 12 this year too (next month). Any ideas why a LIBRARY magazine can't redo its publication statement to match the issues it publishes? I thought serials *issues* were supposed to be caused by disconnected bureaucratic publishers, not organizations in our own field. Is it January yet? January is the month I expect things to crop up. This has been a banner year for odd things in serials, though, I might have to do a "year in strange serials" review...!

Psalm of Journals

Woe be it unto the publisher who makes changes without informing the library community. Wrath should be poured out upon those that change sizes in the middle of the volume. Chaff is what shall be called those that change names and format, but keep the same numbering. Fire and brimstone should reign down on those that change publishers in the middle of the academic year and content becomes electronically impossible. The whirlwind will be reaped by all of these fallen publishers. Yea, though the library worker shall walk through the shadowed valley among these legions -- at the reckoning the fallen shall be called out and condemned to an eternity of using papyrus to produce their journals which will catch fire upon completion and lock them in a never-publishing cycle of torment. Gnashing of teeth and rending of garments will be done by the publishers and though they will call out -- no library worker will save them from the everlasting fire and their names shall be stricken out first when budgets are cut and they shall publish no more forever.

Amen.

New and Interesting twist to Enumeration

This has got to be a new occurence....even for the serials world.


"T....is published monthly in January, February, March, April, May, September, October and November/December by the Association for Career and Technical Education Inc...."


Ok. I count up to 8. Why do I have v. 83 no. 9 January 2009 in my hand? The only thing I can figure is that each year issues are pushed onto the next year till they hit 9. That is going to make it fun in 2009 --- February will be v. 84 no. 1, January 2010 will be no. 8 and February 2010 will be no. 9....making v. 85 no. 1 start in March 2010.


Maybe it's an oversight and the publishers are in the middle of changing enumeration and months to match and 2009 will be an anomaly and 2010 will be perfectly normal and logical in its numbering....!?

Statement of purpose

The Statement of purpose is a bit of a misnomer. It is akin to a mission statement, but some of them are not pithy. I just browsed one in a science journal and it is 80 words long. A mission statement or statement of purpose should be able to be conveyed in 1-2 short sentences. Otherwise the scope of the journal becomes too large.


I think there should be some truth put into these statements. I would like to see something like : "This journal exists to give credibility to the professors of an esoteric field. It is, of course, an international journal that is devoted to the highest form of research and timely knowledge dissemination of esoteric field X."


And then for the publication information they could use something like "This journal is published in a timely manner." (And leave off when it is actually published or its publishing regularity which do not often coincide with the real world.)

Publication statements

The absurdities of publishing can be seen if one is to just look at publication statements from publishers...they can include useful information, but sometimes they just leave one more baffled... See some examples below:


In a mathematics magazine:
"...is published monthly except June and July, with a combined December/January issue..."

This one is actually a great example of what publishers should do:
"...is published in September, November, January, March and May..."

From a theological journal:
"...is published monthly except for combined issues in June/July and August/September..."

And then there is the disclaimer statement:
"...is published when enough material is available to warrant an issue..."

Tune in next time for fun with "submission guidelines."