Tables of Content

I should change my signature to "Serials Troglodyte" instead of "Serials Serf" with the blog post topics I have been on lately. However, this next blog entry falls clearly on the side of technology.

Tables of content are very useful. It helps patrons have a "preview" of what is inside. Some professors look for certain authors or topics and they use this as a very quick screening tool. Tables of content are as inconsistently done as indices, but that is a topic for another day. Publishers that use tables of content are clever because it draws the reader to "browse" the new issues (in whatever format it is being viewed in) and sometimes leads to drawing patrons to read an issue. I laud the publishers that make tables of content available to patrons/professors via email. Oftentimes these publishers make the articles link back to the electronic versions or to the abstracts and this is also great advertising. Publishers that eschew tables of content, for whatever reason, risk patrons skipping over their publication in lieu of another one that has better "advertising" of its contents.

Since tables of content can be as short as one page with the title and author listed, why don't more publishers use them? Maybe only the "shadow" knows! :)