Category:Serials

Definition of a Serial

"A continuing resource issued in a succession of discrete parts, usually bearing numbering, that has no predetermined conclusion. Examples of serials include journals, magazines, electronic journals, continuing directories, annual reports, newspapers, and monographic series."—AACR2R, 2005 update, Glossary.

What publications qualify as serials?

For CCS catalogers' purposes a bibliographic entity may be treated as a serial when one or both of the following conditions are met:

1. It has an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number), with occasional exceptions, whether it can be found on the item or not. If it is not on the item itself, the ISSN can be found in other sources (e.g., Ulrich's, Gale, or OCLC.) However, an ISSN is not required to catalog an item as a serial.
2. A volume number or date (such as a year) is used to differentiate publications.

If it falls into one of the following categories it may be treated as a serial:

• travel guides^[1]
• price guides
• directories
• directories of schools, colleges, universities
  • business directories
  • campgrounds and trailer park directories
  • bed & breakfasts, hotels, etc.

Serial titles new to the CCS database which are collections of short stories, plays, literary collections, fairy tales, songs, Supreme Court cases and biographies should be entered as monographs with contents notes. Refer to the section on contents notes.

Note that the above definitions do not mention frequency; it is not necessarily a criterion of a serial. An important phrase in the definition is "has no predetermined conclusion." A multi-part item (a monograph complete or intended to be complete in a finite number of separate parts) is not a serial.

When choosing a bibliographic record from OCLC do not alter a monographic record to be a serial or vice versa. If a monographic record but no serial record exists in OCLC, create a new serial record in OCLC.

Publications that generally are not treated as serials:

• Publications that lack a numeric or chronological designation
• Publications revised on an irregular or infrequent basis (textbooks, dictionaries, handbooks, encyclopedias, manuals)
• Multivolume monographs
• Publications of limited duration
• Censuses
• Supplements to monographs
• Loose-leaf publications to which new or replacement pages are periodically added (material in this category is instead treated as integrating resources)

References