Patricia -- You are correct.  In interviews with catalogers, one of the most time-consuming pieces of business having to do with the 362 was having to look up abbreviations (esp. foreign language months, but also New ser./n.s.; vol./v.), and how to 'correctly' represent ordinals (esp. foreign language).

So CSR gives the cataloger an option to use abbreviated form or full form.  However CSR still requires the cataloger to represent (in some form) what appears on the piece.  CSR still also requires cataloger to put issue dates in parentheses following issue numbering if issue has both dates and numbering.

Here are the 362 instructions from CSR documentation.  The first bullet point addresses your specific question (which uses the word 'captions' but is the same as what you refer to as 'label').  --Steve

Use unformatted 362 (1st indicator 1, “Began… ”) to supply numbering/dates of publication whenever this information is available, regardless of whether the first/last issue(s) are in hand or not.

• Captions and months may be transcribed as found (including abbreviations and capitalization) or they may be recorded using standard AACR2 abbreviations.
• Numbers (including ordinal numbers) may be transcribed as found or they may be recorded as Arabic numerals, whichever is easiest.
• If numbering is not present or known, indicate the year publication began or a copyright date when publication began if known.
• If numbering includes both issue number and date, put parentheses around the date.
• Include new series designations, changes in numbering, etc., in this field or in the 515, whichever is clearer. See examples in Appendix B. (Cf. LCRI 12.7B10).

On Mon, 10 Sep 2007, Fogler, Patricia A CIV USAF AETC AUL/LTSC wrote:

> Thanks for checking and re-opening.  Yes, I wondered too about that latest issue consulted date.    Much appreciated.
>
> I'm wondering now about the formatting of the numbering in the
> 362 ‡a 1:1 (Feb. 1991)-  and
> 500 ‡a Latest issue consulted: 3:8 (Aug. 1998).
>
> We've recently been going over the new CONSER standard record and while I recall the new direction to transcribe the months as found or abbreviate, I don't recall anything about leaving out the labels (vol, no., etc.) entirely.   Is that something new?
>
> Patricia Fogler, Catalog Librarian
> Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center
> 600 Chennault Circle, Maxwell AFB, AL 36112
> (334) 953-2135  patricia.fogler@maxwell.af.mil
> https://catalog.au.af.mil
> http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/lane.htm