Greetings colleagues:

During the past year, I have witnessed a disagreement over a
possible serial title change play itself out on the bibliographic
utilities (OCLC and RLIN).  As someone fairly inexperienced to
periodicals cataloging, I have found this episode to be very
enlightening.  I thought I would share this episode with other
catalogers and see if anyone here cares to voice an opinion on this
issue.  If you respond privately to me, I'll summarize the comments,
and post them back to the list.

Here are the facts of the case:

The _Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery_
(published since 1954 under that title) changed its title to
_Journal of the ACM_ with the first issue of 1996 (vol. 43 no.1).
Apparently, a CONSER librarian felt that it did not
warrant a title change.  The master CONSER record on OCLC
(OCLC#1514518) was edited to include a 246 1 $i Issues for
1996-    have title: $a Journal of the ACM.

Part 1) AACR2rev, LCRIs, and the _CONSER Cataloging Manual_

 AACR2rev 21.2A1, category c, states that there is no title change if:
 "the only change is the addition or deletion of the name of
 the issuing body (and any grammatical connection) at the end
 of the title."

 LCRI 21.2A dictates that when applying AACR2rev 21.2A1, category c:
 "do not consider the title proper to have changed if the name of the
 issuing body or an element of its heirarchy at the end of the title
 changes from one form to another (e.g. from an initialism to the
 spelled-out form, from a longer form to a shorter form)."

 Thus AACR2rev 21.2A1 category c, and LCRI 21.2A1 seem to agree
 that the change from "Journal of the Association for Computing
 Machinery" to "Journal of the ACM" does not constitute a title change.

 However, the _CONSER Cataloging Manual_ states:
 "Distinguish between acronyms or initialism and abreviations.
 Treat a change from an acronym or initialism to the full form
 (or vice versa) as a title change, but do not treat a change
 from the full form to an abbreviated form (or vice versa) as a
 title change per AACR2rev 21.2A1."

 This seems to suggest that a title change has occurred.

 In addition, the _CONSER Cataloging manual_ allows for the creation
 of a new title when an organization switches from a spelled out
 verision of its name to an acronym, providing that the change
 is the at the beginning of the title.  Module 16, page 9, number 8
 states that a new record is constituted if:
 "The form of the name of an issuing body given at the beginning
 of the title changes (e.g., full form to initialism).
 ex:  Amalgamated Engineering Union monthly --> AEU monthly"

 It is true that in this specific case, the change from "Association
 for Computing Machinery" to "ACM" did not come at the begining of
 the title. The three words "Journal of the" preceeded the change.
 How significant are those three words?  Some could argue that
 "Journal of the" are insignificant words and that since all the
 other, significant, words were changed from being spelled out to
 being an acronym, there has been a change in title.

Part 2) Publisher's intent

 One issue to consider when pondering a title change is to examine
 the publisher's intent.  In this case, there was a clear intent by
 the publisher to undergo a title change.

 The change in title was first announced in the masthead of the last
 issue of 1995 (vol. 42 no.6). "Note that the title of the _Journal
 of the Association for Computing Machinery_  will be changed to
 _Journal of the ACM_ as of the January 1996 issue."

 In the next issue, the first to have the new title, (vol. 43 no.1)
 the notice of change in title was repeated again in the masthead:
 "_The Journal of the ACM_, previously published as the _Journal of
 the Association for Computing Machinery_ (ISSN 0045-5411)
 is published 6 times per year..."

 Each subsequent issue has consistently been titled _Journal of the ACM_.
 The cover, spine, inside front cover, masthead, footers and headers
 all uniformly use the new title.

 The ISSN, however, remains the same.

3) Enter the librarians:

  What's happening on OCLC:

   So far there has not been a new CONSER record submitted to OCLC for
   the title change.  If you take a look at the 019 field of the
   existing record (OCLC rec. #1514518) you will see that 3 recent
   bib. records have been merged with the master record.  I speculate
   that these new records were created as title changes, but were
   merged with the existing bib record after someone else reported a
   duplicate bib. record to OCLC.  On 13 March, yet another bib record
   was created incorporating the title change (OCLC#36542401)
   This record probably won't last long and will eventually end up
   as the 4th prior OCLC record to be relegated to the 019 field.

  What's happening on RLN:

   So far several major university research libraries (including
   SUNY Albany, Cornell, Standford, University of Iowa, Rutgers,
   and the University of Michigan at Flint) have all submitted
   new records incorporating the title change.  Several other
   libraries have attached their holdings to these clusters.

So who is correct?

Does AACR2rev 21.2A1 prohibit a new record?

Does LCRI 21.2A1 prohibit a new record?

Should a concern for "publisher's intent" have more
infulence in the decision to create a new serial bib. record
than our profession's collective stated cataloging policies?

Are those well respected university research libraries ignoring
the stated policies of AACR2rev, CONSER, and the LCRIs?

How would you handle this situation?

Any insight on this matter would be most appreciated.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Jiras
Catalog Librarian
Warren Hunting Smith Library
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Geneva, NY 14456

315-781-3551 voice
315-781-3560 fax