1 Serials Overview

1 SERIALS OVERVIEW

Serial issues in Alephino are treated as item records. An item record includes information such as ownership (sublibrary), location (collection and call number), status for loans, and barcode identifier. In addition, the identifying characteristics of a serial item record are:

Description (for example, v.17: no.3 (1993:Mar.)); the description is displayed in lists of items and informs staff and patrons about what is available in the library.
Link to subscription record; the link is required for correspondence with the vendor. If there is no link, the item cannot be claimed.
Enumeration and chronology information. This data is used together with pattern information to build the description field.

Alephino Serials Control includes check-in and claiming of serials issues. In order to be able to accomplish this task efficiently, the system must be able to generate expected serial issues automatically.

A Subscription Record is also required for automatic generation of serial issues.

1.1 Records in the Serials Module

The Serials module uses several types of records, all of which are linked to the BIB record:

Subscription Record

The Subscription Record contains information relevant to a specific subscription of the serials for example held by the library, including the vendor, subscription period and location. The library must have one subscription record per item.

Schedule (Form)

The "schedule" form is a proprietary pattern format specific to the Alephino system. A schedule record is accessed only from the Control node in the Serials tab in the Acquisitions/Serials module. A schedule record is accessed only from the "Control" node in the Serials tab.

The Publication "Schedule" Form is best used for simple patterns. For example, it can be used for regularly published weekly, monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly journals, with no exceptions (such as "not published in August").

Patterns (Fields)

"PATTERN" uses the MARC21 Caption and Pattern fields (853/4/5) or (853X/4X/5X). Level-X (863) can contain a link to a special Subscription.

Routing Lists

Routing lists for the distribution of issues can be created for a subscription record. A subscription record can have multiple routing lists. Creation of routing lists is optional.

Item Records

Every item record represents one physical issue received by the library.

1.2 Records Required for Serial Prediction

In order that the system be able to generate serial issues records automatically (a prerequisite for efficient check-in and claiming), two types of records are required:

Subscription
Publication Prediction Pattern

Alephino supports two types of publication prediction pattern records, which we call 'Schedule' and 'Patterns'. A single serial record can have related prediction data in either Schedule or Pattern format, but not both. It is possible to use the schedule form for a serial with simple publication prediction and the Patterns form for an other serial (with complex publication prediction) .

Go to next section (Accessing the Serials Function and Serials Records)