Recently Marie Whited of the Law Library and Judy Kuhagen of
the Policy Office met with several serial catalogers to discuss
the question of LCs recataloging "Shepard's" as serials. Up
until now LC has cataloged Shepard's citations as monographs
because the work as a whole did not fit LCs definition of a
serial. Because of publishers' requests or U.S. Postal Service
considerations, NSDP has cataloged the supplements as serials
with notes to the monographs they update.
The meeting was prompted by a request from the law community
that LC reconsider its policy and there was general agreement at
this meeting to treat Shepard's citations as serials. On an
incremental basis LC will recatalog Shepard's citations as
serials.
There are, however, some questions about HOW to describe the
titles.
1. Because the bound volumes, supplements and advance sheets
are used together, the law libraries in general would like one
record for each title with notes to explain the publication
pattern.
2. Because there is a separate numbering scheme for the
supplements and the bound volumes, some catalogers feel two
records are needed with one to describe the bound set and another
to describe the updating supplements.
To get around the numbering problem, we are considering basing
the description on the CHRONOLOGICAL designation, ignoring both
the volume numbers of the supplements as well as the edition
numbers of the bound set. Thus there would only be one record
with the dual sets of numbering explained in notes. The Policy
Office and the Law Library favor this approach.
We would like to have feedback from those who work with or
catalog these titles as to the effect of this approach on their
internal catalogues.
Since we hope to implement this recataloging quite soon we would
appreciate responses before the end of September.
Please respond to:
Maureen Landry
Serial Record Division
Library of Congress
(202) 707 6428
email: landrymail.loc.gov