A new twist to bringing a title up to date

I just received a journal that says "v. 46/47 issue 1" and then there is a 2 page editor's note about how he hopes all of the subscribers support this decision...

The issue is less than 100 pages long and the journal is usually a quarterly, but they would like us to accept one issue instead of 5?

Very creative thinking. Especially since this is a higher math journal that deals with complex equations. I guess in their world 1+1 does not equal 2. They must have some unknown variable in there that changes the addition....magically.

So, I think it should be reclassified as a "magic" journal instead of a "math" journal. :)

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.

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.

Roman Numerals

I can understand the confusion about some of the Roman Numeral rules. Especially the one about the "X" and not using more than 3. However, I received 2! related publications in the post today that makes me think that Roman Numerals should be taught in math classes in primary and secondary schools once again. What, exactly, is the point of putting "XLX"? The volume number should be 50 and that's what this one winds up being -- but how obtuse can you get?!

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....!?

Microfilm Splicing

It is *not* "the best of all possible worlds" but microfilm splicing does happen. I know the archival websites say you should not do it and advocate digitizing, ordering replacement film or having your film heat-melded by a specialty company...but realistically and financially, it is just not always possible to do any of those 3 things, so splicing does occur.

It is nearly 9 years into my career as a serials serf we ran out of splicing tape...! Trying to find a vendor that manufactures splicing tape is nigh to impossible. After trying the previous two vendors that we had used and finding that they had callously gone out of business in the intervening time period since our last order, we located a source.
There were no prices on the website -- which is scary enough. Then when we did get a hold of a live person and found out the prices....we were indeed in "shock and awe" of the cost. Unfortunately, we had to order supplies from them since they are the only one we could find -- to the tune of $65 for 1000 splicing tapes....plus shipping and handling of course. Here's hoping we never run out again...!

Hope Springs Eternal

It is that time of year in the library industry where old records, subscriptions and such wrap up and new ones crop up....



Another one of those things that is good in *theory* but not in practice.... at least it doesn't work *quite* that way in the world of serials.



Our library is now receiving January, February and March 2009 issues for some of our magazines....conversely, we just received one with the cover chronology of 2006.
Last week I received one with a cover chronology of 1999... What this means is that we've now paid for all of the extra years of those journals that have yet to be published and *hope* that they are published at some point.

Usually after 5 or 6 years our vendor puts a note on the relevant title "order when current" and merely holds on to the funds instead of sending them to the publisher. However, that has a problem all of its own. If the vendor does not realize that Journal XYZ has resumed publication (as they are wont to do) or has combined a bunch of years into one volume with an editor's note "We apologize to our readers about being behind on publishing. In order to get us back on track, there will be 4 combined volumes published this year...v. 34 1/4 1999, v. 35 1/4 2000...." And yes, this does happen -- more than one would expect!


In addition, there are the journals with odd subscription years that inevitably get caught out during a renewal...One journal has its renewal period that starts in November for the next year. So when we pay our renewal for January-December, we sometimes miss issues for January and February because the publisher didn't receive our funds in time for their deadline (even though we have had an ongoing subscription to this title for 50 years+).

Some journals that we would like to cancel, we get stuck with for an additional year because of their cancellation policies "can only be cancelled during the beginning of a calendar year...can only be cancelled within 3 months of subscription....can only be cancelled prior to the academic year....etc."


With apologies to Robert Burns...:
Should auld journals be forgot,And never brought to mind ?Should auld journals be forgot,And days o' lang syne?