ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 114/ C &RL News Subject access to periodicals: A Main-Mac combo By Constance L. Foster Serials Supervisor Western Kentucky University As a serials librarian and supervisor, I find my few voluntary hours each week at the Ready Refer ence desk a truly humble experience. My com mand of serials lingo and skills as a supervisor matter little to the patron who needs a quick answer to yesterday’s assignment or who rushes in with only ten minutes before she has to give a speech in class. Questions such as “Which journals have ar ticles about drugs?—I don’t need to see them, just list them,” or “I have to look at three music jour nals—where are they?” hurriedly bring to my mind images of OPACs, COM catalogs, PCs, CD- ROMs, and printouts for possible access to these frantic queries. Almost instantaneously, however, I reach calmly for the WKU Libraries Subject Guide to Current Periodicals, a modest twenty-eight page document in a plastic report cover and turn to the subject and periodicals listing in question. This printed guide is the result of my reference service, yet it is also proving useful for other purposes. Such a subject guide listing of current periodicals, as an additional access point for information in small and medium-sized libraries, is a very feasible item to produce once the initial database has been created. To assimilate 2,550 titles into subject areas was possible primarily because of our online serials check-in and management system at Western Kentucky University Libraries. Communicating with a mainframe computer thousands of miles away, this flexible system allows for immediate input and updating of serial records and reports generated on several sortable fields such as fund, holdings, routing, call number, marking, and sub ject. When we first input all of our check-in infor mation six years ago, we also made the decision to utilize as many fields as possible and to select the proper Library of Congress classification code for all serials. For the uncataloged periodicals, we assigned the LC subject closest to the nature of that title (in many cases the automated system had a suggested code); for the cataloged serials we used the call number assigned through our normal cata loging procedures. Each new title entered on the system always gets a subject code at the time the order is placed and the screen is set up, with allowance for possible revision. A printout by subject sort of all titles in our database served as the working copy for the begin ning of this project. With this hard copy at hand we eliminated continuations, memberships, depart mental orders, and other extraneous titles that did not fit the current periodicals scope for our main library, Science Library, Kentucky Library, and Educational Resources Center. The first edition of the guide did not include newspapers, but they were added in a later edition. We then scrutinized the assigned LC headings in relation to our university’s current catalog of de partment names and the course bulletin of class offerings to refine headings for local use as needed, e.g., History: Kentucky; Education: Higher; Insti tution Administration (for Hotel/Restaurant Man agement); Communications and Broadcasting. This process took approximately forty hours of staff time (one person) with consultations and revisions by the serials supervisor. With a list of seventy-nine subject headings for 2,550 titles, we used a Macintosh Plus at the Fac ulty Media Center and Microsoft Works 1.0 to alphabetize the titles within each subject. A sepa rate export file was needed for each subject in order for the whole document to be transported into Ready, Set, Go! 4.0a for the final layout and print ing in a two-column format. This data input involved two people (one staff, one supervisor) for about thirty-seven hours, or a three-week period, and an additional three hours to move all the files into RSG. Once this phase was completed, however, the major time-consuming part was done, the database created. To keep track of new titles, deletions through cessations or can cellations, and changes, the serials supervisor keeps a “working copy” of the guide at arm’s length in order to record each change for the next edition, since all serial entries or changes pass over her desk sooner or later! For printing the final version we relied on the university’s print shop and later the copy center. We first printed one hundred copies, fourteen pages (front/back), plus a red-topped cover page that is used for all WKU Libraries guides and information sheets. We distributed the guide to February 1990 /115 library faculty, departm ental liaisons, departm ent heads, deans, and directors. As additional requests come, the num ber o f copies increases b u t not significantly. F o r 1988 th e printing cost was $74.00 and another $14.00 for th e report covers. These covers seem best suited for th e narrow margins, eliminate holes and spiral bindings that get caught on surrounding materials. Since the present soft ware rearranges th e total docum ent each tim e a line is deleted or added, th e guide is completely reprinted with each revision. Besides referring to th e guide as another access point for serials information, many library faculty find it useful in compiling statistics for reports requiring num ber o f titles held in a specific area like “Reading,” or “Econom ics.” W e send a copy to the local public library and have had requests from area com m unity colleges and universities for use in interlibrary lending and referrals. T he collection developm ent coordinator and our subject refer ence librarians find this resource beneficial when they assess areas o f growth and in preparing bibli ographies. A copy o f the “Psychology” titles is placed on the index table th at holds Psychological Abstracts to identify which journals we have. As with most abbreviated resources, we have a “dis claim er” to consult the WKU Serials List on micro fiche for com pleted holdings and locations for these titles. O nce a resource like this appears, suggestions for enhancem ents em erge through memos, con versations, and self-imposed ideas! The most re quested addition at this point is a straight alphabeti cal listing o f all cu rren t titles; to that is added a request for abbreviated holdings. Next might come an index o f titles to subjects, possibly followed by m ore cross-listings or multiple listings o f titles that are interdisciplinary—not to m ention th e inclusion of newsletters and th e desire by some for all serials (cataloged or not)! So interest is alive as evidenced by such suggestions, and we do weigh each care fully against o ur p resen t m ethod o f input and tim e for what appear to be additional databases. In our high-tech library world, surrounded by coaxial cables and th e bleeps o f PCs, a printed resource as a ready reference tool remains a viable addition to a library’s collection. It can at least guarantee quick response tim e and absolutely no down tim e or tem porary break in communications. As Lynn Smith observes, “All material in the library should be as approachable from as many angles as possible.”1 This subject guide offers an additional access to inform ation about periodicals and can supplem ent the variety o f formats a library already offers to its users. ■ ■ 1Lynn S. Smith, A Practical Approach to Serials Cataloging (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1978), 174.