If you watched the recent Webinar on Issuing MoCs, you know that I strongly encouraged everyone to clean up their Serials... but what exactly should you be checking?
As we get the first waves of libraries converted, I'm getting a crash course in what to look for and what our programs need to work, so here's the run-down!
1. Active Serials
All of your active Serials need four things. The first three are on the title tab:
- Medium: DB
- Publisher: CMLS (It's fine to have the description spelled out, but the Code should be CMLS)
- Serial Type: Dir / Direct
For cleanliness sake, I also recommend making sure the Status is Active, and the Reading Level and Language are set appropriately, but the above are what we need for the program to make a local copy.
We also need an active Caption, which should look about like this. If you have MoC Dir serials without captions, please compile a list and send it to us.
2. Long-Discontinued Serials
At this point, we're recommending that the longest-discontinued serials be excluded from our copy programs. They've been unavailable for quite some time.
If you agree to let these lie, please:
- Clear the Publisher field
- Set the Title Status to Withdrawn
- Include Discontinued or similar in the Title.
(Note: even for titles like these that you do not intend to circulate again, please do not delete serial title records, at least not without checking in with customer support to make very, very sure that nothing is still referencing the title.)
If you decide that you want to keep any of these for the option of sending back-issues, you need to either Cancel or Delete all active subscriptions for them, or patrons will get a very old serial issue. (See below for more details on clearing subscriber lists).
Any that you want to keep will also need the active serial info above, and something added to the Title to make it clear that the serial is discontinued.
Long-discontinued Serials list:
- AMH7 American Heritage - Discontinued Fall 2012
- BRD4 Das Beste aus Reader's Digest - Discontinued Mar 2020
- BUE3 Buenhogar - Discontinued Spring 2009
- CPZ4 Smart Computing - Discontinued Oct 2013
- DBF4 Diabetes Forecast - Discontinued Sep 2020
- JFA4 Journal Francais d'Amerique - Discontinued Dec 2021
- MNY4 Money - Discontinued Jun 2019
- NGT4 National Geographic Traveler - Discontinued Dec 2019
- OCI7 Cowboys and Indians - discontinued Fall 2020
- OPR4 O, The Oprah Magazine - Discontinued Dec 2020
- PBY7 Playboy - Discontinued Jan 2021
- SVT4 Seventeen - Discontinued Dec 2018
- UNW7 U.S.News & World Report - Discontinued Jun 2009
- YAM4 Young Adult Magazine of the Month - Discontinued Dec 2013
- YOG4 Yoga Journal - Discontinued Dec 2023 (no issues on BARD)
- ZIG3 Matilda Ziegler - Discontinued Nov 2009
3. Recently-discontinued Serials
For these, you need to either Cancel or Delete all active subscriptions for them, or patrons will get an old serial issue (that they've presumably read before anyways).
Set the filter at the top of the Subscribers tab to Active, so that only the current subscriptions will show. Then, go through each and either:
- Update the subscription (Ctrl-o), add today's date in the End Date, and Save (Ctrl-s)
- Delete the subscription (Ctrl-d; enter to confirm).
Cancelling by adding an End Date is preferable because it leaves a record of who was subscribed before. If the magazine resumes, you can resume the subscriptions by deleting the End Dates.(But if you have a long list, Deleting is faster.)
We are working on a tool to help bulk cancel subscriptions, so if you have a later transition date and/or long subscriber lists on discontinued Serials, you might wait to see if we can get it to you in time.
Finally, please make sure that the serial includes everything needed for Active serials: Medium: DB, Publisher: CMLS, Serial Type: Dir, and a Caption.
Most Recently discontinued Serials:
- AMH4 American History - Discontinued Spring 2024
- DOG4 Dogster - Discontinued Fall 2023
- OTL4 Outdoor Life - Discontinued Spring 2023
- WRT4 The Writer - Discontinued Sept 2023
Dealer's Choice Serials:
Finally, there are two in-between discontinued serials, and you can decide which of the above lists they belong in:
- PES4 People en Espanol - Discontinued Apr 2022
- PSM4 Popular Science - Discontinued Dec 2022
4. Merged Serials
There are two pairs of merged serials that need review.
For Odyssey / Muse:
- ODY4 - Make sure the title reflects the dual nature of this serial
- ODY4 - Needs Publisher: CMLS, Serial Type: Dir, Medium: DB
- ODY4 - Needs both the odyssey and the muse caption/pattern, with the muse caption being the active one
- ODY7 / MUE4 / MUE5 - whatever the library has for Muse (BARD Back issues only) - needs to have the publisher cleared
Captions:
- odyssey_@chron1@-@chron2@
- muse_@chron1@-@chron2@
- EBN4 - needs to have the Ebony caption/pattern
- ESS4 - needs to have the Essence caption/pattern
- ESS4 - needs Publisher: CMLS, Serial Type: Dir, Medium: DB
- Your choice whether EBN4 should be copied to allow back-issues sent on demand (if not, remove the Publisher)
- Active Patron Subscriptions should be on ESS4
- Check EBN4 for subscriptions added after 2019 - It was announced as returning in 2023 and then withdrawn. Libraries should follow up with those patrons.
Captions:
- ebony_@chron1@-@chron2@
- essence_@chron1@-@chron2@
In Closing
Thank you for making it this far--sincerely. All of this cleanup will mean that you get all the issues you want loaded, but no ancient history getting duplicated and mailed out. It will help keep your first round of MoC Orders reasonable, and it will make the conversion process a lot smoother.
If you have questions, let us know. We will also be working on the libraries coming up for conversion next, so do not fear if you see some of these changing happening "on their own". It isn't the cataloging fairy; it's Katharina and I. (Although, maybe Katharina is the cataloging fairy...)
