Publication History Diane I. Hillmann

Background  Formally the CONSER Task Force to Explore the Use of a Universal Holdings Record  In the process of defining a Publication History record and determining what role it might take in a new view of serials

Working Definition:  “A Publication History Record includes the complete pattern and published holdings of a particular title. It does not reflect the holdings of a particular library, but does express an ‘ideal’ complete run or set of a particular bibliographic entity.”

Our traditional view of serials  Based on the serial TITLE as the main focus  Title is the central node in library systems, from it hangs:  Subscription info  OPAC description and access info  Version info (even if those relate to several bibliographic records)

The bad news about tradition …  Multitudes of title changes  Multiple versions of each title  Subscriptions and licenses to manage  Archival and preservation concerns for print and digital versions  Storage, maintenance and circulation issues haven’t gone away

The good news about tradition …  Descriptive standards for serials still make sense at the title level  FRBR ferment is prompting us to think in new ways about relationships and the need for description at other levels  Underutilized Holdings has the potential to tie some of this information together

Moving Up … and Down  To the traditional serials title description, we need to add:  UP: A Super-record  DOWN: Ways to link to and manage article level descriptions  DOWN: Potential for links to and management of parts of articles (images, tables, etc.)

The Super-record and FRBR  FRBR concepts may apply to serials differently than to monographs  Super-records are a logical place to attach a Publication History record  MARC Holdings record describing the title as published not as held by a particular institution  Template for holdings information at lower levels

“It’s about Relationships”  Horizontal or equivalence relationships  Versions (print, digital, microform)  Vertical or temporal relationships  Title changes  Current issues/backfiles

Issues, articles, and article bits  Uses for description and aggregation at a lower level of granularity  Managing link resolvers  Subscription and license management  Publishing patterns of the future?

Engaging the players  Data exchange protocols cannot be bi- directional--many potential uses exist for data in standard formats  Potential exchange partners:  Subscription agents  Publishers  Library system vendors  Libraries

Where’s the HUB?  Is MARC Holdings a basis for exchanging data between these partners?  Pros: based on real usage over a long period (since 1985); well documented; non- proprietary  Cons: complex; no installed base outside libraries

Some issues:  MARC Holdings and citation practice are not currently aligned, but talk about the same kinds of data  MARC Holdings not used or understood outside libraries  Efforts towards simple expressions for use in publisher oriented systems seem to deny the fact that serial complexity is not the creation of libraries!

Presenting complexity to a user  Library systems have traditionally relied on text-based displays  Users are increasingly comfortable with more visually sophisticated displays  Ability to do the latter depends on standard information

Some examples  mRes mRes  eton.html eton.html