I sometimes have trouble distinguishing a monograph (especially in a series) from a serial (Granta? Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, 30th ed.? Best Brahui Erotica 1?)
Likewise, as I've discovered now that our Worldcat Local setup process has put my poor little fundamentally public services mind at the sharp end of what's fundamentally a tech services project. It's been educational, but there's a certain amount of trying to build a Rosetta Stone on the fly to connect what the cataloger knows that I don't with the complementary knowledge on the online side.
(And then move on to the next link in the chain, which presents similar problems going the other way. Gosh I needed this vacation. :-) )
That's not particularly surprising to hear from someone outside the field. But the basic definition is very simple: A serial is a publication which is (1) issued in parts (2) that carry some kind of enumeration (i.e. sequential piece designation, not always numeric) and (3) is intended to continue indefinitely.
So the question about your Brahui Erotica is: Do they have too many stories for one volume so they're publishing three? Or are they holding a regular contest that coincides with the triennial ErotiCon in Quetta and publishing the finalists? If the latter, then it's a serial even if there never was a second ErotiCon and that's the only volume there will ever be. Granta is easy because all periodicals are by definition serials. (So are all open-ended monographic series, but these are usually cataloged individually to give better access.)
The only problematic one in the bunch might be the Merck Manual. Publications which appear in frequent editions may not technically be serials but have enough common characteristics to be treated as "serials of convenience", especially for acquisition purposes. (Catalogers tend to default to monographic records where possible, since these are easier to create and maintain.)
That's not particularly surprising to hear from someone outside the field. But the basic definition is very simple: A serial is a publication which is (1) issued in parts (2) that carry some kind of enumeration (i.e. sequential piece designation, not always numeric) and (3) is intended to continue indefinitely.
Sure, and there's no problem knowing that "One L" is a monograph and the Harvard Law Review is a serial. But there are some (to me) gray areas in legal publications, at least, especially since they're often revised in place. ("Here's your replacement volume 22." "Here's volumes 22, 22A, and 22B" "We've renumbered! Here's volumes 25, 29, and 35 that cover subsets of the topic formerly covered by 22, which now covers...") Depending on the organizational format, maybe they can tack on new volumes at the end, maybe they can't, and maybe they do anyway. The title may or may not decide to change from 2d ed to 3d ed. at some arbitrary point during this process, and you may have both versions interfiled on the shelf. Similarly, looseleafs may or may not add volumes in the course of their updates, but they're generally serials except when they're not. And what look like monographs can have serialized updates or supplements.
I'm certain the distinction is resolved in a systematic manner from a cataloging perspective. But in practice it means that for me whether a particular publication is a monograph or a serial can be something of an empirical one to discover.
That's exacerbated by the fact that except for occasional projects like the aforementioned, the distinction isn't usually key to anything I'm normally doing. (I may care, e.g., whether something's likely to be current, but that could be a 2011 journal article or 2011 monograph or a 1990 monograph with a 2011 annual pocket part.)
Looseleafs are in a third category called "integrating resources", which also covers such things as online databases. (Formerly I believe they were considered a screwy subset of serials.)
I've seen the "integrating resource" notation in some records from OCLC, but on our patch a loose-leaf title is usually set up as a monograph, then converted to display serial holdings if updates show up (often, they don't, and we don't want to trigger claiming if there aren't going to be updates, since that causes all kinds of tail-chasing and confusion with billing, vendors, etc.)
My latest tug-of-war with Cataloging has been to get them to stop setting titles up as active serials without informing me, just because the piece fulfills some kind of Platonic ideal of a serial in the mind of a Cataloger. From a tech processing perspective, a title is an active serial if we actually have a subscription to it and want to claim it. (The solution has been to get them to always check with me and set it up as an ISER serial unless I determine we want to subscribe. The situation that causes this kind of problem is when somebody orders a title that happens to be part of a serial set or annual publication, but we didn't know that when we ordered it, btw.)
I've found it literally impossible to explain to my assistant what is and is not a serial in the context of legal publications. It depends so much on what you want the record to DO rather than on what the physical piece says it is.
(I'm pretty sure this whole mono/serial ambiguity in legal publications is why JRL permits Law to have its own tech processing dept.; I don't know if it gets as weird with other types of publications).
Further to my post below, any set with volumes being reissued by the publisher are considered serials over here. We maintain subscriptions to those sets, therefore they are serials :-). Maybe your folks have a less mechanical way of looking at these things, though.
Whoah, whoah, whoah! Small steps! They may need some reinforcement on what leads up to four:
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then they could move on to more advanced concepts (e.g., eight…say, who is this Jack Black?):
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and then on up to really advanced stuff such as twelve with vids like yours (thank you, BTW; that's the best quality presentation of that one I've seen) or this one:
Others on you tube agree with your assessment of the lot of Lady Bug picnic videos, this one was posted to overcome the quality issues with the others , its one of my all time favorite Sesame Street cartoons.
The contrast between the Number 3 video and the number 12 video makes me think it marks a before and after in the use of hallucinogens among the Sesame Street Staff.
Perhaps as part of their over all rehabilitation they should watch counting and cooperating
Perhaps to prepare them for the final exam, or as the final exam, they have to get past Count von Count being a bit abstract? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJxKvwMIVtA
Also, have you checked their color naming habits? If they can't count and they only have two basic color terms, maybe they're native speakers of Pirahã.
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momijizukamori
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(And then move on to the next link in the chain, which presents similar problems going the other way. Gosh I needed this vacation. :-) )
Shoptalk
So the question about your Brahui Erotica is: Do they have too many stories for one volume so they're publishing three? Or are they holding a regular contest that coincides with the triennial ErotiCon in Quetta and publishing the finalists? If the latter, then it's a serial even if there never was a second ErotiCon and that's the only volume there will ever be. Granta is easy because all periodicals are by definition serials. (So are all open-ended monographic series, but these are usually cataloged individually to give better access.)
The only problematic one in the bunch might be the Merck Manual. Publications which appear in frequent editions may not technically be serials but have enough common characteristics to be treated as "serials of convenience", especially for acquisition purposes. (Catalogers tend to default to monographic records where possible, since these are easier to create and maintain.)
Re: Shoptalk
Sure, and there's no problem knowing that "One L" is a monograph and the Harvard Law Review is a serial. But there are some (to me) gray areas in legal publications, at least, especially since they're often revised in place. ("Here's your replacement volume 22." "Here's volumes 22, 22A, and 22B" "We've renumbered! Here's volumes 25, 29, and 35 that cover subsets of the topic formerly covered by 22, which now covers...") Depending on the organizational format, maybe they can tack on new volumes at the end, maybe they can't, and maybe they do anyway. The title may or may not decide to change from 2d ed to 3d ed. at some arbitrary point during this process, and you may have both versions interfiled on the shelf. Similarly, looseleafs may or may not add volumes in the course of their updates, but they're generally serials except when they're not. And what look like monographs can have serialized updates or supplements.
I'm certain the distinction is resolved in a systematic manner from a cataloging perspective. But in practice it means that for me whether a particular publication is a monograph or a serial can be something of an empirical one to discover.
That's exacerbated by the fact that except for occasional projects like the aforementioned, the distinction isn't usually key to anything I'm normally doing. (I may care, e.g., whether something's likely to be current, but that could be a 2011 journal article or 2011 monograph or a 1990 monograph with a 2011 annual pocket part.)
no subject
no subject
no subject
My latest tug-of-war with Cataloging has been to get them to stop setting titles up as active serials without informing me, just because the piece fulfills some kind of Platonic ideal of a serial in the mind of a Cataloger. From a tech processing perspective, a title is an active serial if we actually have a subscription to it and want to claim it. (The solution has been to get them to always check with me and set it up as an ISER serial unless I determine we want to subscribe. The situation that causes this kind of problem is when somebody orders a title that happens to be part of a serial set or annual publication, but we didn't know that when we ordered it, btw.)
I've found it literally impossible to explain to my assistant what is and is not a serial in the context of legal publications. It depends so much on what you want the record to DO rather than on what the physical piece says it is.
(I'm pretty sure this whole mono/serial ambiguity in legal publications is why JRL permits Law to have its own tech processing dept.; I don't know if it gets as weird with other types of publications).
Re: Shoptalk
no subject
no subject
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlp1w-6XPHU
no subject
then they could move on to more advanced concepts (e.g., eight…say, who is this Jack Black?):
and then on up to really advanced stuff such as twelve with vids like yours (thank you, BTW; that's the best quality presentation of that one I've seen) or this one:
no subject
Others on you tube agree with your assessment of the lot of Lady Bug picnic videos, this one was posted to overcome the quality issues with the others , its one of my all time favorite Sesame Street cartoons.
The contrast between the Number 3 video and the number 12 video makes me think it marks a before and after in the use of hallucinogens among the Sesame Street Staff.
Perhaps as part of their over all rehabilitation they should watch counting and cooperating
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l7KbMVdN7E&feature=relmfu
Perhaps to prepare them for the final exam, or as the final exam, they have to get past Count von Count being a bit abstract?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJxKvwMIVtA
no subject