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Serials with no ISSN Joanna Tousley-Escalante 12 Jan 2000 15:15 UTC

We are in the throes of starting up a new library system and have
encountered a special problem that I believe is unique to this system.
For the OPAC to display the items received in the Serials Module, both the
BIB and the Serials record must contain the same ISSN.  Well and good,
except that we have a fair number of small newsletters and organization
publications that do not have an ISSN.

We are searching all possible sources for such a number, including OCLC,
Ulrich's, the ISSN database, et al.  But I can't help but wonder if we're
overlooking a possible source for more information.  One problem is that
often the title in hand being searched is a second language edition and if
staff know the English version of the title the ISSN can be identified.
But the sources we're using often do not provide that link between the
different versions.

Also, this system has a check that requires the ISSN to be a "valid" ISSN.
So for those titles with no ISSN we cannot just add a made up number.
Does anyone know how to make a valid ISSN that is not a correct ISSN?  I
have seen ISSN's in the $z subfield on OCLC, and I also have seen ISSN's
with X as the last digit.  Is there a way we can create a dummy ISSN
within the valid structure of the ISSN?

I'll welcome all of your suggestions for both issues as we are desperate
to get this system up and running fully in the shortest time possible.

Regards,
Joanna Tousley-Escalante
*       Head, TSU
*       VIC Library - IAEA
*       Vienna, Austria
*       j.tousley@iaea.org
*       431 2600-22624