From: Nancy Slight-Gibney <nsg_at_oregon.uoregon.edu>
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
**************************************************
Nancy Slight-Gibney
Director, Budget & Management Information Services
1299 University of Oregon Library
Eugene, OR 97403-1299 voice: 541/346-1831
email: nsg_at_uoregon.edu fax: 541/346-3485
**************************************************
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Received on Wed Jul 30 2003 - 15:42:56 EDT