Thanks to the twenty-four librarians who responded to my question
about periodical shelving practices. Here's a summary of their comments.
Overwhelmingly, they report that they shelve periodical titles
alphabetically, with roughly half classifying them in K1-30, and most of
the others not classifying at all. Generally, when a title changes the
old volumes are NOT moved to the location of the new title, with the
justification that the law library user will probably have a cite to a particular
title and volume, rather than an interest in browsing the full run of the
periodical. Full advantage is taken of 780/785 fields and dummies on
the shelf, or similar methods, to try to make clear to users what has happened.
There were several other interesting approaches and suggestions. One
remembered in a previous job following the "ten-year rule": " When a title
changed, if it had been at its previous title for less than ten years, we ...
moved everything under the new. If a journal had been known by a
particular title for ten or more years, we left the older volumes under the old
title, ... The new titlewas then shelved in the new location, ... "
One suggestion that was mentioned several times is to classify
periodials according to their subject. When the title changes, there is then
no need to move anything. This does not entirely answer the question,
where law reviews are concerned.
Two people reported moving the old volumes to accompany the new
title, as we do, but one said that if the new title also starts over with v. 1,
the OLD title is not moved.
Thanks again,
Jack Bissett
John P. Bissett
Cataloging Librarian
Washington and Lee University
School of Law Library
Lexington, VA 24450
(703) 463-8546
jpb@wlu.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:49:10 PST