Help with Major and Minor Title Changes

A recent discussion on the OCLC-CAT list reminded me of some helpful hints for determining major versus minor title changes in the new CONSER Standard Record Documentation. Pages 13-14 in Appendix A have these bits of advice:

Major vs. Minor Changes

I. Rules of thumb for problematic situations

Resource-type words: If the word can be used with an indefinite article, consider it a resource-type word (using this guideline, newspaper is a resource-type word; news is not a resource-type word). Frequency words are not considered resource-type words (though commonly used that way in English). In case of doubt, consider a word to be a resource-type word.

Minor Word Variations: In case of doubt, consider a different representation to be the same word but use caution and perhaps a dictionary in the case of different grammatical forms because words like man and male are different words with different meanings.

Geographic term or government body?: When the serial is issued by or associated with a government body, consider a geographic term to be a representation of the corporate body’s name (e.g., California facts and figures issued by an agency of the California state government).

Change of meaning or subject matter: Limit the application of this rule to changes that would be reflected in subject headings, and cases where the publisher indicates that the title change reflects a change in scope.

Remember also to consult AACR2 21.2C and related LCRIs when determining if a title change is major or minor.

New issue of CONSERline now available

No. 29 (fall 2007) of CONSERline is now available on the CONSER web site. Contents include:

From the Editor
CONSER Standard Record News
DLF Registry of Digital Masters
Integrating Resources Cataloging
SCCTP
PCC Ad Hoc Series Review Task Force
CONSER Documentation
Membership News
CONSER People

The complete online archive of the newsletter can be found here.

"Single, Separate, or Something in Between: Results of a Survey on Representing Electronic Serials in the Catalog" by Abigail C. Bordeaux

Volume 7, Issue 3/4 (2007) of the Journal of Internet Cataloging includes Bordeaux's article on the single vs. separate record debate concerning the cataloging of electronic serials. I first discovered this article as a pre-print a couple months ago while doing research on the topic. While a number of articles already address the debate, Bordeaux's article provides a fresh perspective by using a survey to find out what libraries are doing in the real world. While her survey showed no clear preference in practice, those using separate records were more likely to have the majority (76-100%) of their electronic serials represented in the online library catalog. Also notable is the similar perception of patron satisfaction between libraries using the single record approach versus the separate record approach.