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Change in CONSER/Non-CONSER Treatment of Serials

Change in CONSER/Non-CONSER Treatment of Serials. NLM Tech Bull. 1997 May-Jun;(296):na.

May 1997 [posted]

For over 20 years as a participant in the CONSER (Co-operative Online Serials) Program, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) contributed bibliographic records for virtually all serials cataloged to this national program (with the exception of non-medical reference works housed in NLM's Reference collection). In January 1997, NLM began restricting the categories of serials to which it will give CONSER-level cataloging. These preliminary restrictions, which may be revised at the completion of the one-year trial period, were viewed as necessary to increase the number and timeliness of serial titles cataloged and made available to users of NLM serial bibliographic records.

The categories of serials for which NLM will now contribute serial bibliographic records to CONSER include:

  • Titles indexed for Index Medicus (IM) at the point of selection for IM, including continuations or title changes of existing titles

  • Special List titles (e.g., titles indexed in the Index to Dental Literature)

  • Substantive English language serials and monographic series, including those selected for the NLM Reference and History of Medicine collections

  • Substantive serials and monographic series in French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish

  • Major U.S. Federal government biomedical serial reports/publications

In addition, NLM will provide CONSER-level cataloging for those serials for which National Serials Data Program (NSDP) pre-publication records exist.

It should be noted that NLM will continue to provide cataloging records for all cataloged serials held by NLM to all licensees of its USMARC bibliographic products. For OCLC, the host CONSER database, this means that NLM will supply information about NLM's serial collection by providing a CONSER-level record for those serials which fall into the categories listed above and, for other serials in the NLM collection, by either providing a non-CONSER record to OCLC or by editing an existing OCLC record with NLM specific details (e.g., serial unique control number, NLM call number, MeSH subject headings and NLM holdings symbol) without authenticating the serial record for CONSER.

--prepared by Alice Jacobs
Technical Services Division