Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 14:01:17 -0400
From: Nancy Slight-Gibney (Univ. of Oregon) <nsg_at_oregon.uoregon.edu>
Subject: Worst Serial Title Changes of the Year
2003 Worst Serial Title Change of the Year Award Winners
The ALCTS-SS Worst Serial Title Change of the Year Awards Committee is
pleased to announce this year's winners of the coveted trophy(ies).
Each year
the Committee creates and presents awards for serial titles which
changed in the
previous year for what appear to be spurious and doubtful reasons.
Awards are
occasionally given for other variations in publication, such as changes
in format,
frequency, and numbering. This year's awards, honoring titles which
changed in
2002, were selectively presented in Toronto at the ALCTS annual award
meeting.
Presented below is a precis of the presentation and a complete list of
the award
winners.
Here we are in Toronto - a very unusual place for the American Library
Association
to be holdings its conference. So this year, we thought we'd have an
unusual award
recognizing a momentous event that occurred this past year, but which
was based
on work done in Toronto a few years ago. We would like to present to
the
Anglo-American cataloging rules, 2nd edition, 2002 revision, the "We're
Not About to
Change the Title of Our Committee to the 'Worst Continuing Resource
Major/Minor
Change of the Year Award Committee' Award"
Now for the formal list of award winners:
1) "The Gender Bender Award" goes to the Journal of women's health,
which changed
title from the Journal of women's health & gender-based medicine in
Sept. 2002, thus
reverting to the title which it had from 1992-1999.
2) "The Ranganathan Save the Time of the Reader Award" goes to Utne
reader, which
changed to Utne in Nov. 2002 because "...we are not simply about reading
but also
about thinking." Maybe they should have put more thought into the title
change!
3) "The It's About Time Award" goes to the Association for the Study of
African-American
Life and History which finally changed the titles of its two
publications: Journal of Negro
history to Journal of African American history and Negro history
bulletin to Black history
bulletin.
4) "Snake in the Grass" is a tie! To:
a) ALA's Federal and Armed Forces Libraries Roundtable who,
after 21 years
of producing Federal librarian changed the title to Federal and armed
forces libraries
in 2001 and then reverted to Federal librarian in fall 2002 with vol. 1,
no.5; even though
this is a quarterly magazine.
b) Michigan Library Association for changing their publication
Michigan librarian
to Michigan libraries. They were so excited about the title change that
the last issue
of Michigan librarian and the first issue of Michigan libraries are both
v.67, no.3!
5) "The Birkenstock Flip-Flop Sandal Award" goes to Friends of the
earth, published
for 10 years under that title; for two years as Earth focus; and now as
Friends of the earth.
They"re learning how to reduce, reuse, and recycle titles.
6) "The M-I-C-R-O-C, Why? Because it's Latin Award" goes to Microchimica
acta,
whose new editor was so bothered by the mix of Latin and Greek spellings
in the title
Mikrochimica acta that he received permission from the publisher for a
change in spelling,
"... even though this initially may lead to some confusion when looking
for the journal
in the listing of a library or on the net."
7) "The Carpal Tunnel Award" goes to The occupational therapy journal of
research,
which changed to OTJR: occupation, participation and health, causing us
all to
keyboard yet another correction to records
8) "The Research? We Don't Need no Stinkin' Research" and "The Give Me
an 's'
Awards" go to the Journal of receptor and signal transduction research
for changing
its title to Journal of receptors and signal transduction.
9) "The Why Should I Change My Monogram When I Upgrade my Image Award"
goes
to Computers in nursing, which changed to Computers, informatics,
nursing: CIN.
10) "The Hands Across the Sea" or "Even non-English Titles Can Change
Award"
goes to Comptes rendus de l'academie des sciences whose 6 series all
dropped their
series numbering, changed the main series title to Comptes rendus,
changed most
of the subseries titles, and added one more. This is just the latest in
a long-standing
history of merges, renumberings, and main series changes - and we're
sure it won"t
be the last.
11) "The Ugly Duckling Award" goes to Beautiful British Columbia which
changed to
British Columbia magazine. British Columbia isn't beautiful anymore?
12) "The Matthew Brady Is Very Disappointed Award" goes to Civil War
times
illustrated which changed to Civil War times.
13) "The Fresh and Not Boring Award" and "The No New ISSN for You Guys
Award"
goes to People weekly who dropped "weekly" from the title, but haven"t
technically
changed their title (according to their customer service) because they
wanted to
"keep everything fresh and not boring."
14) "The If You Can't Reduce It, at Least You Can Manage It Award" goes
to
Inventory reduction report which changed to Inventory management report.
15) "The Bouncing Ball Award" goes to AIHAJ which changed to AIHA
journal and
which won an award in 2000 for the 1999 change from American industrial
hygiene
journal.
16) "The Boldy Go Where Many Have Gone Before Award" and "The Worst
Serial
Title Change of the Year Award" goes to Science fiction chronicle which
changed
its title to Chronicle. We read from the Editorial pages: "... frankly
the current title
is misleading. The name Science Fiction Chronicle implies
that all we cover is science fiction, which just isn't so". So,
Chronicle is better????
The Worst Serial Title Change of the Year Award Committee for 2002/2003:
Marguerite (Maggie) Horn, Chair
Jennifer O'Connell
Nancy Slight-Gibney
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Received on Thu Aug 28 2003 - 22:01:29 EDT